Ed Cube
by Yoshermon
Summary: They don't know why they are there or who's behind it all, only that the cul-de-sac kids have to escape or suffer a horrible fate in the depths of the Cube.
1. Prologue

"_**Now boy, you--two options. Death, or**_—_**in the**_—_**chance of**_—_**vival."**__  
_As his consciousness started seeping back into him, he tried to remember the previous day.  
_**"Survival? You mean**_—_**get to live?"  
"Yes, but you**_—_**wiped of your**_—_**and recent ev**_—_**"**__  
_ He held his head as it throbbed with each gap in his memory. Realizing he was on solid ground, awake, the boy quickly opened his eyes before shutting them again right after, the sudden light too much to handle. He sat up and tried opening his eyes again, slowly this time. As they adjusted to the white light around him he started to get up on wobbly feet. As his brain started to kick in, he looked around and wondered if he was still sleeping. He found he was inside of a very strange room. Each wall, including the floor and ceiling, was perfectly identical to one another. In the middle of each wall was what looked like a large metal square with a horizontal bar attached to a short rod protruding outwards from the center. Narrow ladders embedded in the walls wrapped around the middle of each wall of the room, connecting to the squares and outlining them. The rest of the room was covered in an illuminated white paneling with small geometric patterns indented symmetrically on each wall. Curious, the boy stumbled over to a ladder and hoisted himself up to the square in the middle of the cube. The boy looked at the horizontal rod and slowly grabbed it. He felt it shift under the weight of his hands, turning clockwise slightly. The boy turned it some more and after three revolutions, a low hissing noise emanated from the square as it started moving outwards. After a few inches, the square ended and slid smoothly down a pair of tracks that came out with it. Climbing around the square door, the boy inspected the hole it left behind. It too was lit up, but the white light only extended through half of the tunnel while a bright blue light occupied the other half. It was large enough to crawl through, and the boy did just that. He looked in slight confusion at the sight ahead. Crawling forward to get a better view, the boy's eyes suddenly widened in confusion and astonishment. In front of him was another room, perfectly identical to the one he was just in. Only this one, like the half of the tunnel, emitted a bright blue glow. The boy crawled backwards into the white room, noticing the square automatically rise up and set back into the wall, and tried another door. The procedures went exactly the same from the opening of the door to the room beyond, only it was green this time.  
Once again the boy crawled back into the white room and decided to try the door on the floor. He carefully climbed down the hole, using the ladders on the floor that extended into it, and nimbly dropped a fourteen-something feet into the red room below. His sandals hit hard on the floor below, but the boy was used to dropping from tall objects.  
"Boy, this sure is strange, isn't it Plank-" Johnny cut himself off when the sudden realization that Plank was gone took him over. But before he could yell out his imaginary friend's name, a loud snap rang through the room and the boy froze. As if he were a statue, Johnny just stood in the room motionless. Red lines started to form on his skin and clothes as the boy continued to make his dumbstruck face. They were straight and evenly spaced, Johnny's side covered in horizontal lines while his front and back formed a grid. The lines filled with blood that soon overflowed them and trickled down his skin, staining his white shirt a dark red and forming a sickly purple color on his blue jeans. As this all happened in a fraction of a second, a few light thuds sounded in the room. Right after the pieces of his fingers hit the floor, the boy suddenly started to come apart, his hands falling in pieces like diced meat followed by his arms. His somewhat askew standing posture caused Johnny's right half to fall to the ground before his left half, and they both split into neat, square bars of meat that splashed into the large pool of blood on the floor. The puddle steadily grew larger, complimenting the red glow of the room.  
Behind where the boy once stood, dripping with blood slightly, was a grid of thin wire that subsequently folded up and retracted back into the ceiling of the Cube.


	2. Shoeing

"Ohh, my head," Eddy muttered as he slowly let a flood of green pour into his eyes. He slowly got up and inspected his surroundings. "What the heck? Where am I?" he asked himself as he looked around the cube-shaped room he was in. Going through the same procedures as Johnny, Eddy opened a door on the wall and started to crawl through. Slowly, he stuck his head out of the other side of the hole into the white room. As Eddy was about to crawl through, something suddenly came out of the corners of the walls. Eddy's eyes opened wide and he quickly recoiled out of reflex, narrowly avoiding the flames that shot from the nozzles around the room. After five seconds, the flames stopped and the nozzles quickly retracted back into the walls. Eddy, after taking a minute to recover from his shock, quickly scrambled back to the safety of the green room. His heart was still pounding by the time the door closed behind him, though Eddy didn't really notice. After taking a minute to regain his composure, Eddy decided to try another door. He climbed up the ladder and started to turn the handle when a sudden hissing sound startled him. Turning around, Eddy saw the door behind him open up. He fell to the floor when a sudden shape appeared on the other side of the hole and quickly scrambled back to his feet in fear. However, that fear suddenly vanished when a familiar red-haired face came into the green room, followed by the rest of her.

"Eddy?" Sarah asked as she hopped down from the hole and walked towards the boy. Though it was faint, Eddy could tell a bit of fear in the girl's voice, instead of the usual anger or annoyance.

"Hey Sarah." Eddy said timidly. Whatever kind of emotion that was on Sarah's face was replaced by a stifled smile as the girl tried to hold in giggles. Eddy looked at her with a confused face as Sarah continued to laugh. An unfamiliar coolness on Eddy's face caused him to put his hand on it, and Eddy suddenly realized his eyebrows were gone. "Oh ha, ha, Sarah. Why don't you go in that room and get yours burned of too?" he said angrily. Sarah started to run out of giggles and she stopped to soak in what Eddy had said.

"What the heck are you talking about?" she asked.

"I mean that that room," Eddy said as he pointed to the door leading to the white room, "has flamethrower thingies that nearly roasted me alive!"  
Sarah's eyes widened as she thought whether he was telling the truth or not. His eyebrows _were_ missing, she thought, as if they'd been burnt off. But Eddy lied so often that he could've done it on purpose to get attention or something, but how? Why?

"Yea right, Eddy." she said, not wanting to admit she wasn't sure.

"Oh, forget it. When you go in a room and get burned to death, don't come crying to me!" Eddy retorted. He started to open a door and crawl through before pausing nervously.

"You, you came through this room," Eddy said, with fear in his voice, "right?"  
Sarah was surprised at the sudden change of emotion, and started to think Eddy might've been telling the truth.

"I think so."

"Well, you're not burnt or dead or anything, so this room must be safe. And I don't see much point in staying here." That rare display of wisdom, slight as it was, convinced Sarah to follow Eddy into a second green room. From there they tried the door above, hanging on the ladders on the ceiling and climbing up the crawlspace slowly. As they neared the blue room above, Eddy quickly poked his head out of it and ducked right after, checking to see if something would happen. They waited for a few seconds, then decided the room was safe. Eddy climbed up first, not bothering to help Sarah out, and started to decide which door to open.

"Gee, thanks for helping me up." Sarah said sarcastically as the usual anger returned to her voice. A familiar hissing noise startled both of them as the door near Eddy opened up. Eddy bravely, or so he thought, climbed up to look in the hole only to get smacked in the face by a large object. Eddy fell to the floor, holding his face as someone poked their head through.

"Ed-boy! Loud-mouthed Sarah! Rolf is glad to see you haven't been attacked by the foul contraptions of this whatchamacallit place!" Rolf said as he climbed down, followed by Kevin and Edd. Rolf helped Eddy up, stifling a giggle at the large, red, boot-shaped mark on Eddy's face as well as his missing eyebrows.  
"What's with you throwing your shoe at me?!?" Eddy shouted as he pointed at the piece of footwear hanging by its shoelaces in Rolf's hand.

"Eddy, I don't know where we are but some of these rooms are booby-trapped." Edd explained as he slowly climbed down the ladder.

"Double-D's right. Sometimes when Rolf throws his shoe in a room, things like flamethrowers and acid shooters come out of the walls." Kevin added.

"Told ya!" Eddy remarked, looking at Sarah. They sneered at each other until Rolf broke the tension.

"Enough of that, you two. We must find our way out of this whatchamacallit place before we starve to death!" he said.

"Speaking of which, here," Edd said, handing bobby pins to Eddy and Sarah.

"What're supposed to do with these?"

"Put it in your mouth and suck on it. It'll keep your saliva going so you won't get thirsty as fast."  
Reluctantly, the two slipped the pins in their mouths while trying not to think about where Edd got them from.

"Let us make haste, everyone! We must find go-go Nazz girl and Urban Rangers Jimmy and Johnny!"

"Don't forget Ed."

"Him too."  
Everyone agreed and let Rolf lead the way. Using the method of throwing his shoe into the room to check for traps and pulling it back by its laces, which the kids dubbed "shoeing", they slowly made their way through multiple rooms.

"How much longer?" Eddy whined as he climbed down the ladder into an orange room.

"Until what?" Kevin retorted.

"Until we find the freaking exit to this stupid place!"

"Just have patience, Eddy. We have no idea how big this place could be, and if it has lethal traps dotted around it then whoever put us in here obviously did not want us to escape easily. Plus, if we're all in here for who-knows-why, then Ed and everyone else is probably somewhere here as well." Edd and Eddy both saddened a little at the mention of their friend's name. They hadn't seen any trace of Ed since they woke up an hour ago, and they were getting worried. As Rolf opened the door to another room, a faint rumbling surrounded the area. It steadily grew louder until the kids had to plug their ears to damper the noise. After a brief but loud climax, the rumbling started to quiet until it suddenly stopped.

"What the heck was that?!?" Eddy shouted as he started digging his finger in his ear.

"How the heck should we know, Dorky?" Kevin retorted, making Eddy grumble. "Why do we even have you along for the ride anyway? You're just slowing us down!"

"Oh yea? Well what makes you so important, Shovel-Chin?"

"You wanna go, Small-Fry?"

"Why you-"

"Stop this buffoonery, both of you!" Rolf shouted as he knocked Kevin and Eddy's heads together. "You two will be doing this....Err, Double-D Ed-boy, what did you call this place again?"

"A cube, Rolf?"

"Ah yes, thank you. You two will be doing this cube whatchamacallit's work for it; fighting each other and killing yourselves in a room that is supposed to be safe!" Eddy and Kevin looked at Rolf as if he'd said the sky was falling.

"Dude, calm down. It was just an argument." Kevin said.

"Kevin, many wars and grudges have formed from small arguments like yours and Eddy's. The rivalry between the two of you originates from them, and, especially in a place like this, we don't want anyone going over the edge." Edd said. With those words, Eddy and Kevin uttered short, quiet apologies at Rolf's command.

"Come on, guys. We need to find Jimmy and the others." Sarah said. With that, the group resumed their slow and tedious navigating through the depths of the Cube with not a word between them.


	3. Finding Nazz

_**"We will leave you to discuss your decision."**_

_**"Well guys, whaddaya say?"**_

_**"I'm not sure dudes; we don't even know what this "alternative" option is."**_

_"What's the verdict?"_

_**"Well, it's either that or the death sentence."**_

_**"But they said we could live."**_

_"They're all trapped."_

_**"I say we do it."**_

_**"I can't believe we got ourselves into this."**_

_"Let's try the one above, then."_

_**"If only we hadn't--"  
**_The memory vanished as the surface under him slid out of existence. Ed woke with a start when he felt something solid smack his face.

"Grt rff rf Rrlf!" he heard a muffled voice say.  
"Ed! Thank goodness!" Edd shouted as he helped his friend off of Rolf. The door hissed as it clamped shut on the ceiling of the green room. Kevin and Sarah helped peel Rolf off of the floor while Ed shook himself to wake himself up some more.

"I like what you did with your room, Eddy!" Ed said as he looked at the various geometric imprints along the green-lit walls.

"This ain't my room, Ed. This is like some kind of trap-"

"Cool door!" Ed interrupted as he opened one of the doors and started to crawl in. The others frantically grabbed him and pulled him back into the green room.

"You idiot! Some of these rooms are trapped!" Sarah shouted. Ed simply looked at her with a quizzical expression. Sarah sighed and said, "Like in that stupid movie you watch...uh....When Rooms Attack or something?"  
Understanding suddenly washed over Ed's face while the others looked at Sarah.

"What? You don't live with the guy without knowing what kind of garbage he watches!" she said defensively. Edd handed Ed a bobby pin, which he immediately swallowed when instructed to put it in his mouth. Edd sighed as he pulled out another pin from his hat (the other kids grimacing at the thought of why he has so many) and carefully told Ed not to swallow it. The boy understood and put the pin in his mouth. The group then continued their navigation through the Cube, an occasional rumbling heard here and then.

"What was that?" Kevin asked as the group entered a white room.

"What was what? The rumbling?"

"No, listen." The group quieted and they heard a faint sound coming from their right. Kevin impulsively opened the door and the volume increased twenty fold.

"HELP!!!" Nazz screamed as she sat in the corner of the blue room. "SOMEONE, ANYONE, HELP ME!!!!"

"Nazz!!" Kevin shouted as he hopped down in the room. Nazz opened her eyes and immediately hugged the boy on sight of him, much to the jealousy of the Eds. To their surprise, they noticed Nazz was crying in Kevin's shoulder.

"What happened?" asked Eddy as he tried to garner her attention. She looked up and everyone saw her eyes were red and puffy. She had been crying for a long time.

"I-I woke up here and I don't know where I am and Johnny-" at the mention of his name Nazz started to resume her bawling.

"Johnny? Where is he?"

"He....he..." Nazz couldn't get herself to say anything more. Instead she just pointed to a door and sniffled.

"He's in there?" Eddy asked as he started to open the door. Nazz looked up and screamed as he started to enter, followed by Eddy himself.

"Oh my god!!" he shouted as he saw the bloodied mess of fabric and flesh that was just beginning to rot in the red room in front of him. Eddy noticed his head was poking into the room just slightly and quickly withdrew it before hearing a loud snap. The tips of his three hairs fell down in front of him as Eddy looked in horror at the grid of wire that wasn't there a split second ago. It quickly folded up and retracted back into the ceiling, waiting for another person to foolishly enter the room. Eddy crawled in reverse and fell back into the blue room, panting.

"Was Johnny in there?" Ed asked innocently.

"Y-yea, h-he was in there a-alright." stuttered Eddy. All of the kids simultaneously yelled as Ed started to climb the ladder around the still-open door.

"But I thought that Johnny-"

"Johnny is.......err...." Edd paused as he tried to find a way to break it to Ed. The boy was oblivious to the gravity of their situation and didn't seem to think the trapped rooms were lethal during their trek. "Johnny is......taking his three-o-clock nap!" Edd finished, a bit shaken by his lie. "We'll come back for him in a bit."  
Ed gave one more look at the door, watching it close, shrugged, and turned his attention back to Nazz.

"Well Nazz, it looks like you're with us." Kevin said as he walked toward a door.

"Uh-uh. I'm not leaving this room." Nazz said, huddling back into the corner. "I am going to wait here until I wake up from this nightmare!"

"Nazz, as much as I'd like to wish you were right, this isn't a nightmare. We're all here, and despite the danger I doubt that we'll be given food or water during our stay in this place. At best, we only have about three days before we're too weak to move. We need to find a way out." Edd said. Nazz opened her mouth but couldn't find any way to reply. Rolf finished shoeing a room and gestured for the others to follow. The group resumed their travels, with Rolf shoeing the rooms, Kevin, Eddy, Edd, Sarah, and Ed following behind and Nazz refusing to go near a room until everyone else was in it. Intermittent rumblings and slight quakes occurred at varying volumes, sometimes to the point of knocking someone down but they kept going.

"So, why do you think we're in this place?" Sarah asked as they stopped in a white room to rest.

"How should I know?" asked Eddy.

"I was just wondering, fathead."

"What did you call me?!?"

"Nothing, fathead!"

"Why you little-

"Enough you fools! Must Rolf always be the shepherd for you hopeless sheep?"

"Oh yea, like you're the big hero when you can't even speak properly!"

"How dare dare insult Rolf's way of the word, table-top Ed-boy! Speak out of turn again and Rolf-"

"Is Johnny still asleep?" Ed asked suddenly, causing the tension to collapse. Rolf and Eddy's argument vanished as they turned toward the boy. "I hope he can find us."

".....He-he'll find us, Ed." Edd stammered. Ed's innocence was horribly bittersweet yet no one wanted to rid him of it. The last thing they needed was for Ed to get scared and do something stupid.

"I think this has something to do with the government." Kevin said. "I mean think about it; we've gone through what, like almost a hundred rooms or so? And there may be hundreds more. They all didn't appear out of nowhere, someone must've built them."

"And that someone or something must have a helluvalot of money," Eddy finished.

"Exactly. And what has tons of money with nothing better to spend it on?"

"Oh please, gentlemen, I think you've been watching some of Ed's movies. The government isn't some evil thing that takes all of our tax dollars and spends them on giant deathtraps." Edd said.

"You got a better explanation?"

"We could've been abducted by the shape aliens of sector 9." Ed suggested.

"Considering how weird this place is, I'd believe just about anything by now, Ed." said Sarah.

"Whoever or whatever is behind all this, our first priority right now is to get the hell out of here." said Kevin as he stood up.

"Big-chinned Kevin is right. We must keep moving until we find an exit." Rolf said. After waiting for a slight rumble to pass, the kids resumed their progress through the Cube.


	4. Shock

"Well, well, well, if it isn't little Dutch!"

"Kanker!!"

"You're coming with me, squirt." Lee said as she crawled into the room Jimmy occupied and grabbed him by his shirt collar. She opened a hatch and climbed through into the orange room beyond, dragging Jimmy with her. As she walked towards the center of the room, a sudden metallic twang sounded. "What the?!?"

* * *

"Come on, Nazz! Get the lead out!" Kevin shouted as he pulled the girl through the crawlspace and joined with the rest of the group in the green room. "You're really slowing us down."

"Well excuse me for being afraid of cut into little pieces!" she shouted at the angry boy.

"Quiet you fools! Rolf smells something!" Rolf said as he stuck his head into one of the doors. He took a few loud sniffs and recoiled. "The air is dry, like Nana's skin. Rolf has a bad feeling about the room beyond." he said. He threw his shoe and waited. Nothing happened. Kevin started up the ladder when Rolf held out his arm.

"What's the big idea, Rolf? The boot didn't do anything."

"Yes, but the air is dry and smells of evil, unlike the previous rooms.

"Rolf has a point Kevin; so far any traps we've come across were activated by motion-sensors in the walls. But I have heard of biochemical sensors that react only to certain substances excreted by human skin and hair." Edd explained.

Rolf pondered on his words for a minute, then said, "Let Rolf perform one more test." He reached over an unsuspecting Eddy and pulled off one of his hairs, much to the boy's dismay. Rolf held the large hair in his hand and blew on it, sending it fluttering gently into the red room beyond. Before it hit the floor, a grid of razor wire formed the top of the room and quickly snapped down to the bottom, cutting through the hair in midair.

"Woa, good call!" Kevin said dumbfoundedly as he climbed down the ladder.

"You mean we're gonna have to throw our hair in the rooms from now on?!?" Nazz exclaimed as she heard the news.

"Not likely, Nazz. Normal rooms are fairly humid, and, as Rolf pointed out, the room with the biochemical sensor had dry air. If it didn't, the sensor would be less....sensitive, so to speak or it would be triggered just from the humidity of the room. If we make sure the air isn't dry, then shoeing should still be an efficient way to navigate through this place."

"Ugg, who would go through the trouble of putting biochemical thingies or whatever in this place?!? Why don't they just kill us all now?!?"

"Calm down, dork! Geeze, you're so irritable!"

"Oh yea, and you're just mister positive shovel-chin all the freakin' time!"

"ENOUGH!" Rolf's shout echoed throughout the cube and immediately cut off the boys argument. "Rolf has had to put up with your squabbling far too much! Now enough with the asking questions and wondering why we're here. Do not think about anything unless it is there right in front of your face. You will be your own undoing if you aren't wise and careful." with that, Rolf shoed a blue room, found the air humid, and hopped in. As his feet hit the blue-lit floor, a quick, mechanic whirring sounded followed by the automatic closing of the door and Rolf turned around suddenly. With only enough time to put a look of horror on his face, a thin tube protruding from the wall started spraying a liquid right at the boy's face.

"What's going on?!?" Sarah asked they heard screaming from the other room. Kevin walked up to the door but saw the handle turn on its own. It opened, and Rolf fell back into the room, screaming. Smoke was emanating from his head as he writhed around on the floor, kicking and holding his hands up to his face. The kids winced in horror as he abandoned trying to hold his face, revealing that the skin was missing and the gory innards were melting away under the powerful acid. Rolf's screaming muffled as his esophagus filled with mushy gums and his writhing slowed, eventually coming to a halt. The boy known as Rolf was dead, his head a bowel filled with deteriorated flesh and blood. The door slid up and closed back into the wall once more, patiently waiting for someone else to open it. It took a while for Nazz to stop screaming and even longer for Edd to wake up from fainting at the horrid sight. Kevin, Eddy and Sarah backed up, still in shock.

"Double-D. Double-D! Wake up!" Eddy said as he brought Edd back to consciousness. Kevin had anticipated that Edd would faint again at the mere sight of Rolf's head, so he carefully positioned the dead boy near the corner of the room, his face turned to the side.

"Double-D, get over here quick!" Sarah shouted, nearly crying.

"What's wrong?"

"Look at Ed!" Edd looked over to see Ed, who had broken out into a spasm at the sight of Rolf's death. He lay on the floor, twitching occasionally, his eyes large as dinner plates. They held him down after a violent convulsion struck him, followed by two more. After ten minutes, the boy started to get up, shivering heavily.

"Ed? Are you okay?" said Sarah, her voice filled with concern. She'd never really been worried for Ed all her life; the guy could pick up a house and get punched through a wall without even tiring. Yet at the sight of Rolf's death, the boy broke out into a spasm and his eyes were filled with fear and sadness. His breathing was irregular, and his skin was cold and clammy.

"Th-this room i-is....gree-green." Ed stuttered. He continued to shiver, though less violently than before.

"W-what?"

"G-green. I wanna...I wanna go b-back. I wanna go back to th-the blue room."

"What the heck is wrong with him?" Kevin asked.

"I don't know; Ed must be in some sort of shock from witnessing Rolf's...." Edd couldn't get himself to finish the sentence. They just looked at Ed, who stood there mumbling nonsense words to himself.

"Well, we gotta keep moving." said Kevin as he opened the last unentered door on the walls.

"Oh no, I'm not leaving this spot!" exclaimed Nazz from her corner. "Rolf's 'shoeing' idea is no longer safe, and I am not going to take chances."

"Nazz, I understand your concern but staying here is of no use. We'll find a way to accurately test rooms for traps." Edd said as he nervously walked over to her.

"Hey Double-D, come here a sec!" shouted Kevin as he stuck his head into a passage. Edd came over next to him. "Look," Kevin said, pointing at a small metal plate on the other half of the crawlspace. On it, facing the boys, were three numbers: 226, 572, 888 "You think they mean anything?"

"I noticed these before, but didn't really think much of them until now." Edd said. Eddy and Sarah crowded the two boys to see what they were talking about.

"Oh joy, numbers. Like they're gonna help!"

"Eddy, that's just it; these numbers mean something!" Edd exclaimed. He quickly hopped off of the ladder and opened the door leading to the room with dry air. "463, 564, 872!" he shouted.

"So the numbers are different in each room, big woop." Eddy remarked. Edd ignored him and ran to the room that killed Rolf.

"355, 728, 877..." Edd pondered for a minute as he climbed down and started pacing. Then suddenly he exclaimed, "Prime numbers!"

"What?" asked Kevin and Sarah simultaneously.

"Prime numbers! In every room that was trapped so far, one or more of the three numbers in it was prime!"

"...What are prime numbers again?" asked Kevin.

"A prime number is something that you can't multiply something else into, right?" Nazz inquired.

"Exactly, Nazz. A prime number has only two factors that can be multiplied to get it; one, and the number itself. If one of the three numbers marking each room is prime, then it's trapped!"

"How do you know for sure?" Nazz asked.

"There's only one way to find out." Edd carefully pulled off Rolf's shoe, being careful not to look at his face. Grabbing the laces, he threw it into the white room. Nothing happened.  
In the excitement in the possibility his discovery, Edd impulsively flung himself into the white room himself, much to the worry of the others. He waited for a few seconds. Then a minute. "It's safe! It's safe!" he shouted. The others followed him, though Sarah had to help Ed up the ladder. He was still shaking, though instead of mumbling he started making intermittent honking noises.

"Will somebody shut him up?" Kevin whined as Edd deciphered the numbers on another door. Sarah turned to Ed, feeling oddly sympathetic for him. The fear was still in his eyes, and his face looked as if he'd never smile again. She gently grabbed his hand and he stopped making noises. "Thank you."

"Do you hear that?" Nazz asked as a small sound filled the room. What sounded like a faint voice and small twangs crept into the room. The group made their way towards it, Edd's theory of prime numbers holding true. They opened a door and the sound amplified, Jimmy's voice cracking from screaming. Edd looked into the orange room to see Jimmy huddled in the corner.

"Double-D! Help me!" he screamed, his voice cracking. Edd started to enter the room when something on the floor caught his attention. It was Lee Kanker; or large chunks of her, anyway.

"Dear lord!" Edd shouted before looking up at Jimmy. "Jimmy! You gotta get out of here!"

"I can't! Look!" As if on cue, an all-too-familiar-for-Jimmy twang resonated through the room as a strip of thin wire hung loosely between a small screw-like protrusion from the wall and a bolt on the adjacent wall. Followed by that were other twangs caused by bolts that shot from the walls, criss-crossing around the center of the room and weaving loose wire around it. Once all the bolts finished, the screws started twisting, going into the wall and pulling the wire more and more taught. Edd imagined that if someone were caught between those wires they would've been cut into pieces, just like Lee. After a few seconds, the bolts detached from the walls and quickly resumed their starting positions. The process repeated immediately afterwards.

"Jimmy! Crawl toward the door, hurry!" Edd shouted as the wires pulled taught. Jimmy did as instructed and made it to the wall as the trap reset once again. He quickly climbed up the ladder, pausing to scream as a bolt landed close to him, then darted into the crawlspace.

"Jimmy!" Sarah shouted as she helped him down into the safe room. He looked just as traumatized as Ed, though he apparently got over the initial shock. He cried in her shoulder for a few minutes.

"Wait, Lee died?" Eddy asked, almost a hint of anticipation in his voice.

"Yes, Eddy." Edd grimaced as he saw a smile forming on his friend's face. "Eddy! That isn't something to be glad about!"

"Why? She's out of my hair for good now!"

"But she's dead! Do you not understand the gravity of it?"

"What does gravity have anything to do with this?"

"Okay you two, break it up!" shouted Kevin. "Double-D, get over here and start cracking these numbers. Eddy, shut up." Edd gave one last look at Eddy before going to a door while Eddy just rolled his eyes and went over to Nazz. Sarah comforted Jimmy and Ed; they were both horribly shocked by witnessing death. Sarah was pretty unnerved herself, though she didn't want to show it. Edd declared the next room safe and the group once again resumed their progress through the Cube.


	5. Prime Numbers

"Well, my memory is blurry but I think something like that happened."

"You mean we were given a choice between death or going here?"

"Double-D could be right. I think I remember something like that."

"Me too."

"Me three."

"Owie, it hurts trying to remember."

"Same. I think we had our memory wiped or something."

"But why? What did we do to deserve the death penalty or being trapped in this wretched place?!?"

"Beats me. I don't remember anything after goin' to bed last Tuesday."

"T-this room is orange." The kids all looked at Ed, who was sitting next to Sarah. He wore a blank face, and though he finally stopped trembling he developed a newfound habit of constantly strumming his fingers along his arm or other hand.

"Whaddaya think happened to him?" Kevin asked as Ed made a loud honking noise.

"Well, Ed's always been a bit....unstable, if you will."

"Yea, he freakin' tore up the playground just because he had a rock in his shoe!"

"I think that the sight of Rolf's death finally pushed him over the edge." Edd said somberly. He stood up and started to climb towards one of the doors.

"Well he's bugging the crap out of me!" Nazz said as Ed continued making noises.

"Oh shut up, will ya?" Sarah looked at her brother sympathetically and scooted closer to him. She had never felt so sad for him; Ed could take all kinds of beatings and punishments, but he'd never actually seen someone die right before his eyes before. It was as if his herculean strength and dim-witted innocence vanished, and he looked helpless now.

"Okay, break time's over now. Double-D, you done with those numbers yet?" Kevin asked impatiently as Edd stood halfway in the door.

"Almost, Kevin. Let's see.....276," he said, taking half a second to pause, "not prime."

"H-how can you tell if they're prime or not so quickly?" Jimmy asked.

"Well, there are no prime numbers that are even. So if it ends in zero, two, four, six, or eight, then it's automatically not prime. Also, no prime numbers end in five except five itself. Only a few of these numbers so far have actually required me to do some math." Edd said, happy that someone was taking an interest. "In fact-"

"Keep it moving, Einstein." Kevin said as he pushed Edd out of the way. Edd grumbled as he got back up and followed Eddy and Jimmy through. Sarah took a minute to help Ed through, much to the annoyance of the others, and Nazz cautiously went last as always. They progressed in a relatively straight line, only going left or right to avoid a trapped room, though their progress was slowed by Ed and Nazz.

"God, will someone shut him up?!?" Kevin shouted as Ed continued to make noises.

"Why don't you shut up for once, Kevin?" Sarah retorted as she held Ed's hand. He made a loud honk and Kevin winced.

"Come on, Double-D! what's holding ya?!" He shouted in frustration.

"Calm down, Kevin. Let's see....274...333....961....That's 31 and 31, so the room should be clear." he said. Edd stepped aside on the ladder to let Kevin through. The boy slipped through the crawlspace into the white room beyond. Edd was about to follow when he noticed something and froze in fear. "Kevin!" he shouted.

"What?"

"In front of you!" As he turned around, Kevin noticed a few vertical glints in front of him. He quickly turned around and saw vertical strips of razor thin wire running from ceiling to floor surrounding the boy, forming a cylindrical cage around him. Looking up, Kevin saw the tops of the wires attached to the ceiling move closer, turning the cylinder into a cone. They started spinning around the center slowly, causing the top of the cone to lower as the wires twisted around each other. Kevin quickly jumped between two wires and out of the cage just before the rotating sped up and quickly twisted the wires all the way down to the floor.

"Gaah!!" he shouted as he cradled his leg, part of the skin missing from catching onto the wire. After a second of writhing, Kevin quickly stumbled to the ladder as the wires untwisted and moved towards him to try again. Edd and Sarah quickly pulled the boy in just as the wires reached the door. Sensing no target, the bars split up and distributed themselves along the walls, waiting for someone else to try and kill.

"You bastard!!" Kevin shouted as he pinned Edd up against the wall. "What the hell happened? I thought you said it was safe!"

"I-i-i-it w-was s-s-supposed t-t-to be! There w-were no p-prime numbers!!" Edd stammered as Kevin held him against the wall. Upon sight of his bloodied leg, Ed started wailing and he ran to the opposite wall as if to distance himself from Kevin.

"Calm down, Kevin!" Eddy said as he tried to intervene.

"Calm down?!? Double-Dork over here nearly got me killed in some kind of sushi-machine!!"

"I-it w-was an a-a-accident! I d-don't k-know what happened!" Edd was starting to break down into tears. Seeing this, Kevin softened his grip and sighed.

"Well, so much for prime numbers or whatever." he said. He took off his shoe and went to a different ladder.

"Wait, Kevin." Edd said as he regained his composure. "We all know that shoeing isn't the most accurate method of checking for traps anymore. My prime number theory has worked up until now, and I know there has never been a safe room with one. It's just gotta be something more than just primes." Edd said.

Kevin looked at Edd for a while, then said, "Well, I guess we'll just have to combine methods. We'll check for prime numbers and shoe rooms without them."

"Well, as much as I hate to I agree with Kevin." Eddy said. "But I ain't going first."

* * *

"Come on, May!" Marie said as she ushered her sister to climb the ladder. When May joined Marie in the crawlspace, she grabbed some of her long hair and flung it it into the blue room beyond.

"Look's like it's okay." Marie said as she slowly climbed down the ladder. She quickly stomped her foot on the floor and raced back up. She had seen Rolf die in the same-colored room after he deemed it safe, so she wanted to be cautious. After nothing happened, she dropped down along with May. Hearing faint voices below, the girls opened the bottom door and peered into the red room below.

* * *

"Hmm," Edd said as he inspected the numbers of the red room beyond. "724, 999, 616." he said. "That's the first time I've ever seen 999. If all of these numbers are only three digits, we might be near an edge!" He subsequently took Kevin's shoe and tossed it into the room.  
Nothing.  
Edd hopped into the red room hesitantly, the door closing behind him before the other kids got to it.

* * *

"Stupid door!" Eddy said as he turned the handle the handle to the door again. The kids suddenly heard Edd scream from the other room.

"Oh god! Not again!" shouted Nazz as she tears started forming on her face. The screaming went on for some time, and after a while Sarah found the courage to turn the handle and open the door.

"Stop! Desist! I beg of you!" Edd choked as Marie lay on top of him, stamping kiss marks all over his face.

"What's a guy like you doing in a place like this?" she said teasingly as she continued to kiss him.

"Hey, he's got company!" May shouted as the rest of the kids started climbing into the room. Jimmy shook at the sight of the remaining two Kanker Sisters, but Marie was still transfixed on Ed while May watched Sarah, Ed and Nazz enter the room.

"Big Ed!" May shouted as she ran to hug the boy. Instead of the usual screaming and running away Ed would normally do around her, the boy simply started playing with May's hair as she grabbed him. Part of it was burnt off, much to the girl's embarrassment, but it saved her and Marie from a live cremation. ".....Ed, what's wrong with you?" she asked as the boy absentmindedly tugged on her hair. He grew bored of it and resumed strumming his fingers along his hand, honking noisily. Tears welled up in May's eyes as Ed acted as if she wasn't there. "Ed?"

"Ed's a bit-" Edd started before Marie cut him off.

"Get off him Marie! He's saying something" May demanded. Reluctantly, the girl got off of Edd, who's face was completely red with lipstick.

"As I was saying, Ed is a bit...." Edd had a hard time finding the words to describe it.

"He's gone fricken' crazy since Rolf died in front of him." Eddy blurted out. Marie and May both remembered seeing the boy's face start to melt off as he desperately crawled into another room and shuddered at the thought of it.

"...Ed..." May said quietly as she walked towards the boy. Tears welled up in her eyes and she started feeling the same way as Sarah. The boy had always been afraid of her, but the fear in his eyes right now was from pure horror witnessed first-hand, not just running away from cooties.

"Well, it looks like the group's all here. Whoopty doo." Eddy said flatly as he dragged Edd toward a door.

"Wait, what about that bald kid? What about Lee?!?" Marie asked.

"Dead. Both of them." Kevin replied. Marie's eyes widened at the thought of Lee dying. Tears started forming in her eyes, and she and May started to sob.

"Oh calm down, will ya?" Eddy retorted as Edd started figuring with the numbers for the room beyond.

"Eddy, they just lost their sister. How would you feel if Ed or I got caught in one of these foul traps?" Edd remarked. Eddy's face sobered up a little. "Anyway, this room looks safe. Toss me a shoe." Kevin threw a shoe at Edd, which hit him in the face. Used to the pain, Edd bent down and threw it into the room beyond.

"Oh, you use a shoe!" Marie awed, May casting her a mean glance.

"Yes, but it doesn't get all the traps. May, could I borrow a hair?" Edd asked. May reluctantly plucked one of her hairs and handed it to Edd. He threw it in the room and another "sushi machine" activated around it. "I rest my case."

He found another door and it proved safe. The group, now large as it could get, resumed its slow and tedious progress through the Cube once more.


	6. Panels

Okay, who here is really tired?"  
Almost everyone raised their hands as Nazz jumped from the door and let her back slide against the wall until she was sitting down in the white room.

"I may not have a watch, but I'm pretty sure we've spent the day in this place. I think we should all get some shuteye before we continue." Edd said as he sat down too. The rest of the kids agreed and joined them. After a moment, Sarah jerked her head as if she had an idea and grabbed Ed's foot. Under his shoe was a small clock, the glass cracked from being stepped on repeatedly. The face depicted a cartoony version of Eddy, his arms being the small and big hands used to tell the time.

"It's around 10:24." she said.

"At least he's good for something." Nazz remarked, earning a cold look from Sarah and May.  
Edd sat down near a corner, staring blankly at one of the white panels that covered the room. Despite being a deadly, life-size rat maze made for god-knows-what, Edd thought, it was quite an architectural technological wonder. The ladders wrapped all around the room, outlining the edges of each door to split each wall into nine squares. The door made up the middle square while the rest were bisected again with metal strips, making 32 panels on each wall surrounding the doors. Each panel was covered in intricate geometric designs; circles, triangles, and other various shapes were imprinted on each panel. Each panel differed slightly from another, though the different walls were all identical. They almost looked like silhouettes of a large circuit board, but they were more solid than they looked. For some reason, upon closer inspection, the panels almost looked familiar to Edd. As if he'd seen them before.

"So much for being near an edge." Kevin remarked.

"Huh?"

"Back at that red room where we found the Kankers, you said we might be near an edge." he said.

"Oh. For a moment, I thought that the numbers were coordinates, of sorts. That each number represented an X, Y, and Z position. But none of the adjacent rooms have corresponding numbers that would show they were next to each other; they were completely random." Edd said.

"I'm glad, actually." Nazz said. "I think I remember in math class a little about coordinates. If the numbers were positions, then wouldn't there be like a thousand rooms on each side of this place?"

"Yes, Nazz. In fact, there would have to be exactly one billion rooms in this place if there were a thousand on each side." Edd said. The crestfallen expression that appeared on half of the kids' faces and the shocked expression that appeared on the other half told Edd he wasn't lightening the mood. "However," he said, "as I have said before, the numbers aren't coordinates. I highly doubt that anyone, even the government, would have enough money or space to construct a billion-room death machine."

"Still, the numbers do play some kind of role in this place. Double-D proved that safe rooms never have a number that is prime, though the trapped rooms are a bit more complicated." Nazz said.

"Will you guys shut up? All this talk of numbers is making my head hurt. And I wanna go to sleep!" Eddy shouted, followed by a few nods of approval by the other kids. Though the room was brightly lit, the kids were exhausted. One-by-one, they all started to fall asleep.

* * *

"Hello Father."

"Greetings, Eddward. How are you?"

"I'm just dandy, thank you. Have you seen mother?"

"She's still at work."

"Oh. Hey, father, what are those?"

"I'm not entirely sure myself, Eddward. My boss gave me the blueprints to construct them and ordered me to do so."

"They look like panels of some sort."

"Good eye, Eddward. But these are quite strange panels; I have to install all of these hinges and openings in the back. Apparently these designs are supposed to conceal something."

"Strange. Hey, why are they all green?"

"Another question I have not the answer to. I asked my boss and all she said was that they come in green, white, red, orange, and blue."

"That's a strange color scheme."

"Indeed."

"How many do you have to make?"

"Quite a few. I was promised a large raise for doing this; I have to make four-hundred and thirty-six sets of these things. And I have to make thirty-two of them for each set."

"That sounds like a lot of work!"

"It is. Fortunately though, I have a few years to complete this assignment."

"What are they all for?"

"I'm not quite sure."

* * *

Edd shot up from his sleep to find himself covered in sweat and breathing heavily. The room still glowed, bright as ever, but everyone else was still asleep.  
What was that? Edd thought. He slowly gathered up the memory of his dream which shattered for a moment when he woke up. He took another look at one of the wall panels. As his memory started getting clearer and clearer, Edd was more and more certain they were the same panels he saw in his dream.  
"Father......Why?" he said quietly to himself as he slumped up to a wall. Edd never knew much about the company his father had worked for. He never talked about it. Once Edd had let the curiosity get the better of him and he pestered his father to know about his job. After he couldn't take it anymore, his father simply said, "It's a place called Izon. Now if you keep bothering me about it, I'll take away your labeler." After that, Edd had asked no more questions.  
Edd sat there up against the wall, trying to find a rational explanation. But tears kept running down his face and he felt as if a rock was being shoved down his throat. He let a few sobs escape his mouth, a bit more loud than he had hoped. He tried so hard to keep silent that he didn't see Nazz crawl up next to him.

"It's okay, Double-D. We'll find a way out of here." she said, surprising him.

"Oh, I didn't mean to wake you." Edd said, quickly wiping his face off with his shirt.

"It's okay. Ed's foot-watch says its like 9:30 anyway."

"Oh my, we've slept in!" Nazz chuckled at Edd's comment, though he didn't tell her he was serious. A minute later the other kids started getting up, yawning and stretching.

"O-okay. Let's get back on track" Kevin said as he rubbed his eyes.  
That boy is dead set on getting out of here, Edd thought. I don't blame him though.

The kids made their way through a few rooms, being held up occasionally by Ed.

"Hungry......hungry......hungry....." he mumbled, much to the other's annoyance.

"Shut the hell up already!" Eddy whined.

"Language, Eddy." Edd said, casting a glance over to his friend. "We're all hungry, but there's nothing we can eat here."

"Except each other." Eddy remarked as he climbed through the door.

"Eddy! I'd rather die than resort to cannibalism. The mere thought of it...." Edd shuddered and made a face of disgust.  
The group found themselves in an orange room with traps on all three sides and above. They opened the door below to find a blue room. Edd checked the numbers, shoed it, and tossed in one of May's hairs. Nothing.

"Alright, let's go!" Before Kevin could slip himself into the hole, long spikes suddenly projected from the walls of the blue room on all sides. They waited, fully extended, for a second before retracting back into the walls, the circle designs on the panels sliding back into place to conceal them.

"What the?" Eddy asked right before the spikes filled the room once more. The kids all looked in to the hole. Ed made one of his usual noises and the spike trap suddenly activated. After the spikes retracted again, Edd slapped the floor of the room and they sprang right back.

"Sound activated." Kevin mumbled as he let the door slide back into place. "I guess we'll have to backtrack." The kids agreed, but just as they were about to get to the door another rumbling shook them and knocked them off of their feet. After it started to fade, a second rumbling sounded and abruptly stopped.

"That's starting to get annoying." Eddy remarked as he opened the door. To the kids' surprise, however, instead of the green room that was once there there was now a red room. Edd climbed up and shoed it, activating an acid shooter. Nervous, he quickly checked all of the other doors. They were all trapped.

"How is that possible?" Edd shouted. Below them the kids could hear the faint sound of the spikes in the room below activating. "The room we came through is gone!"

"You mean we're trapped in here?" Nazz exclaimed, shaking. The kids slumped to the floor. "We're dead." she said quietly. After a while, Kevin crawled toward the bottom door and opened it again. The kids quietly crawled towards him.

"What are you doing?" Eddy whispered.

"We have to cross through here." Kevin replied quietly. "It's the only possible way out."

"Are you crazy?" Nazz whispered frantically.

"It's crazy, but now it's the only way out." Edd said.

"Hmm...." Whispered Marie. "Close the door again."

"Why?"

"Just do it." Kevin let go of the handle, letting the door slide back into place.

"What is it?"

"I wanna see something." Marie turned the handles quickly and violently jerked the door up and over. She looked into the blue room, which was empty of spikes. "It seems to ignore the noisy opening of the door." she said.

"Then that settles it then." Kevin said. "We gotta go through."


	7. Izon

"Woa woa woa, are you guys crazy?!?" Nazz shouted, setting off the spike trap in the room below.

"Do you have a better idea?" Eddy retorted.

"Yes, I do! It's called staying here and waiting."

"For what?"

"Anything!!" she screamed.

"Will you two idiots shut it?!? You're scaring him." Sarah said as she looked at Ed, who was shivering.

"Nazz, I'm just as scared as you are. But we have no other choice." Edd said quietly. "From what I've observed, the trap only activates by noises above a whisper. As long as we're all quiet, we'll be able to get through it."

"Double-D's right. We're gonna make it through here!" Eddy said, not wanting to be upstaged by Edd in comforting Nazz.

"I'm glad you feel that way, Dorky." said Kevin as he tossed Eddy his shoe. "Because you're going first."

"What?!?" Eddy shouted, once more setting off the spike trap.

"Let's face it. So far, you've been the least useful of the group. Plus, you're the loudest. If you die in there, then at least we'll be safer."

"What about Lumpy over there?" Eddy said, pointing at Ed. "He had a hard enough time keeping quiet when his brain wasn't screwed up!"

"He's too stupid to check the rooms below for traps. He's going last."

"What?!?" Sarah shouted. "Whaddaya mean Ed's going last?"

"That idiot has been nothing but trouble for us so far. He's gonna get one of us killed in that room!"

"But we'll come back for him!" Nazz added. Sarah turned to her, her face red with anger.

"That's a lie, and you know it." she said quietly.

"Fine. Then we won't come back for him." Kevin said, annoyed.

"Kevin! How could you say something like that?!?" Edd shouted. "Useful or not, Ed, Eddy--all of us are indispensable and irreplaceable! We're not just avatars in some confounded video game; we're human beings! And so far, that's all we got left!"  
Kevin looked at Edd quizzically, then showed a face of anger.

"Does that mean that you wanna go first?" Kevin said, annoyed. Edd immediately shied away from the door, his face turning bright red. "I thought not. Okay Eddy, you're up first then."

Eddy gulped hard as he was lowered into the blue room by his feet. It took him a lot of reassuring that Ed would be quiet before he went in; Ed was sitting in the corner, holding his hands over his mouth while Sarah comforted him. Eddy grabbed one of the ladders on the ceiling and spread his legs apart in the crawlspace, allowing Kevin to let go of him so he could walk the rest of his body down until he found himself hanging from the top of the blue room. He tried to control his breathing as sweat ran down his body. A couple drops fell from his nose and hit the floor, leaving a small tapping sound. Luckily, it wasn't enough to set off the spikes. Using the ladders like monkey bars, Eddy quietly made his way to a wall ladder. When he was near a door, he turned the handle slowly. He winced at the loud click the handle made after its final rotation, but nothing happened. Eddy pulled on the door, wincing again at the loud hissing sound it made coming out of the hole and at how it squeaked slightly coming down the tracks. But the room was still, and Eddy breathed a silent sigh of relief.  
Halfway into the crawlspace, he tossed the shoe into the green room beyond. A flamethrower came out and started to incinerate the boot. The sound of the flames startled Eddy and he quickly threw his hole body into the crawlspace. He stopped himself just before he slipped into the trapped room, but when he tried to back up he felt a canopy of metal behind him. He turned around to see horizontal spikes blocking his entrance back into the blue room. As the flamethrower retracted back into the wall of the green room, Eddy waited for the shoe to snuff out and the spikes to retract. Shaking, he carefully made his way back into the blue room, wincing once more at the sound of the door closing behind him. He tried another room, making sure he was completely in the crawlspace before checking it for traps. After throwing the shoe in as well as part of his hair, nothing happened. Making sure that no part of him was in the blue room, Eddy shouted loudly. The spikes in the blue room reemerged once again, but nothing happened in the red room beyond.

"What was that?" Kevin said as the spikes still flooded the room.

"This next room's safe!" Eddy shouted back as he placed the shoe in the crawlspace, signaling the room he was in.

"Alright! Okay, this is the last word from any of us until we all make it through. No one say anything else."

Edd was the next to go in. Like Eddy, he silently climbed towards the safe room and crawled through. Then came May and Jimmy, who made it through safely as well. Kevin and Sarah had a silent argument before sending her in next, along with Ed. As she made it to the floor, she saw Ed going the wrong way. She mouthed to him angrily as he made it to the floor on the other side of the room. Slowly, she went up to him and grabbed his hand gently. They started to make their way towards the other side when Ed stopped suddenly. Sarah looked down and saw his foot was caught on the handle to the door below. Fidgeting, Ed opened his mouth but Sarah quickly put a finger in front of it. She slowly turned the handle to get Ed's pant leg free and soon they climbed into the red room safely.  
After much quiet cajoling, Kevin finally convinced Nazz to go into the blue room with him. They shakily made their way to the red room.  
Marie was the last to go. With no one to lower her into the room, she went through feet-first, using the ladders on the sides of the crawlspace. She carefully climbed down and grabbed for a rung on the ceiling. It was covered with sweat, and when she reached for it her hand slipped.

"Ah!" was the last thing she said before her innards were replaced with metal. The spikes impaled her from all sides, holding her in the middle of the room. Blood was splattered on each spear, purple-looking in the blue light. As the spears slid back into the walls, Marie's body was carried to one side of the room where it subsequently dropped to the floor, activating the trap again to repeat the horrid cycle. Keeping Ed from looking, Sarah took the shoe out of the crawlspace and let the door close behind her.

"Did Marie just..." Nazz paused as her eyes started to get misty.

"I'm afraid so." Edd said quietly. He eyed one of the panels on the wall and punched it, ignoring his hurting hand. "Dad, how could you?" he asked himself quietly.

"How could he what?" Jimmy asked.

"Yea Double-D, how could have your dad what?" Kevin echoed, anger rising up.

"N-nothing." Edd stammered.

"Is there something you're not telling us?" Nazz asked. The kids gathered around Edd and cornered him.

"M-my dad," Edd began, knowing the kids wouldn't let him go until he gave them an answer, "I think he built the p-panels for this place."

"You mean these things on the walls?" Jimmy said, looking around.

"Y-yes, I'm afraid. H-he built them for some company c-called I-Izon."

"Your dad is working for the little jerks who made this hellhole?!?" Kevin shouted, pinning Edd to the corner violently.

"I-I-I d-don't k-know! H-he said he didn't k-know what they w-were for!" Edd stammered. "H-he said there w-were twenty-five o-other people making th-them with him!"

"Wait a minute!" Nazz shouted. "Double-D, did you say Izon?"

"Y-yes."

"Oh my god, my mom works at a place called Izon!"

"What?!?" Kevin shouted, his head darting between Edd and Nazz.

"Wait, is your mom's name Cheryl Van Bartonsh-shm-" Sarah asked.

"Bartonshmeer?" Nazz suggested.

"Yes! My mom and dad both work with her!" she shouted. "Mom said they worked to make small girders or something."  
The kids looked around at the metal strips that framed each panel.

"Jimmy, didn't you once tell me your parents worked at a place called Izon?"" Sarah asked.

"I think so."  
Kevin released his grip on Edd as he stood back.

"I think my mom works there, too." he said. The kids looked at Eddy and May.

"What? My dad's a used car salesman. I don't know what my mom does though." Eddy said.

"My mom said she worked on some kind of assembly line to make ladder rungs or something" May added.

"So all of our parents are part of this place?" Nazz asked. Jimmy started sobbing, and Sarah walked over to comfort him.

"I guess so. When you think about it, we've never really talked about our parents or their occupations until now." Edd said, his composure returning. "While we may not know exactly what we did to get thrown in here, at least we know the connection."

"But why? Why would our parents help build something like this?!?" Nazz cried.

"Maybe they didn't know what they were building." Kevin said. "My dad used to tell me stories about how people helped build things without knowing what they were or did. Your dad said he didn't know what the panels were for, right Double-D?"

"I believe so, Kevin. And you have a point; in many points in history were people manipulated to do something by dividing it into smaller jobs with no connection between them until it all came together. Maybe that's what happened with our parents working at Izon." Edd said. The kids decided to rest for a bit, all of them shaken by the sudden realization. After a few minutes, Nazz perked her head up.

"Hey Double-D," she asked, "did your dad ever say how many panels he made?"

"I think that he did!" Edd said, enthusiasm rising in his voice. "He said he made six hundred and seventy-six sets of one hundred and ninety-two panels. There are ninety-two panels in each room-"

"So he must've made panels for six hundred, seventy-six rooms!" Nazz finished.

"He said that twenty-five other people had the same assignment as him, so..." Edd took out a bobby pin from his hat and started scratching into one of the metal strips on the floor. Mumbling as he worked, he continued to scratch numbers into the metal. "If twenty-six people made panels for six hundred and seventy-six room each, then there must be seventeen thousand, five hundred and seventy-six rooms in this place!" he said excitedly.

"Seventeen thousand rooms?!?" Eddy shouted. "That's like, almost a billion!"

"Hardly, Eddy." Edd reasoned. "And it's not as bad as it sounds. You see, if these rooms are arrange into one giant cube, then it must be twenty-six rooms high, wide and deep."

"So, worst-case scenario, we are anywhere from one to twenty-five rooms away from an edge!" Sarah said excitedly. "Come on, let's go!"  
After resting for a minute longer, the group resumed their progress. Seven rooms later, they found themselves in an orange room. Kevin opened a door, but instead of another room, all that lay beyond the half of the crawlspace was blackness. Nervously, Kevin stuck his head out into it.

"Double-D, I think we've reached the edge."


	8. The Edge

Kevin peered into the blackness on the other side of the door. He looked to his side to see he was sticking out of a massive wall of rooms. Each room had its middle illuminated by its crawlspace, and Kevin saw there were 15 rooms on his right and 10 rooms on his left. The same number of rooms occupied the space above and below him as well, though Kevin couldn't quite see the bottom.

"You're right about the number of rooms," he said. "But other than that I can't see shit out there!"

"Mind your language, Kevin." Edd said sternly.

"Whatever. I think there's another wall in front of us." he said. He took a closer look at the wall of rooms. Aside from the short crawlspaces, the walls were completely flat. "There's nothing to grab onto out here. Climbing down the edge is out of the question I guess."

"How far away is the wall?" Edd inquired.

"I'm not sure. I think it's like fifteen feet or something. You could probably fit another room there."

"What if there's a door somewhere out there?" Jimmy said nervously. "If this place is inside one giant cube, then there must be a way in and out of it."

"Good point, Jimmy. But as Kevin stated, he can't see, erm, feces, so to speak." Edd said. The other kids gave him a quizzical and somewhat grossed out look, but Edd shrugged it off. "If there is a door, we cannot see nor get to it from here. Kevin said there's nothing to grab onto, so climbing around the edge is not an option."

"If only we had a rope." May said. "We could swing to the other side."

"That's a good idea, May!" Edd said, perking up somewhat. "If we can make a rope from our clothes, we can send someone down to investigate the outer wall!"  
Under Edd's instruction, the kids stripped of their outer clothes (Nazz more reluctantly than the rest) and tied them all together to make a fairly long rope.

"Okay Ed, it looks like you're finally going to be useful." Kevin said as he started walking toward Ed with the rope.

"No, Kevin. Not only is it too risky to send someone like Ed down there but we need someone light to go. I don't know how much weight this rope can hold but it certainly cannot carry someone like Ed." Edd said.

"I-I'll go," Jimmy stammered. "If it's to find a way out of this place, I'll do anything."

"No!" Sarah shouted. "It's too dangerous. I'm just as light as Jimmy. Take me down." she insisted.

"Well, Sarah is stronger than Jimmy." Edd said. The boys all stripped of their shirts except Ed, who's jacket was sufficient while Nazz took off her vest. With help from Kevin, they fastened the rope around Sarah's waist and she climbed into the crawlspace. With an assuring nod to a nervous Jimmy, she carefully backed out until the rope was the only thing holding her up. Everyone else was in the room, holding onto the rope as if they were playing tug-a-war. They carefully let it slide through their hands to lower Sarah down until she was three and a half room-lengths below.

"Okay, stop!" she said. "I'm going to try to swing over. Hold on tight!"  
With a powerful kick, she launched herself from the wall of rooms to the outer shell. The other kids groaned as the sudden shift in weight forced them to hold onto the rope tighter. Sarah swung a good 13 feet before she ran out of momentum and started hurtling back towards the rooms. With a loud thud she slammed into the wall feet-first, apparently setting off a trap in the room inside.  
"I'm okay!" she shouted as she heard nervous voices up above. "I'm going to try again!"  
With another powerful kick, stronger than the last Sarah hoped, she sent herself swinging towards the outer wall once again. She reached it, only to touch a smooth, metal surface with nothing to grab onto before beginning her decent.  
As she swung back to the inner wall, a loud rumbling shook the room the kids were in and knocked them off their feet. Sarah screamed as she started falling down into the black abyss until she was stopped by something.

"Hang on!" Eddy shouted as he grabbed the end of the rope, his body halfway out of the room. The other kids grabbed his feet for support as he started reeling Sarah in. She grabbed his outstretched hand and let her waist relax a little, accidentally causing the rope to drop down into the void below. She let out a nervous laugh, still scared but relieved that she was saved. Eddy started to pull her in when a surge of memories started flying around his head.

"Eddy, you blockhead!"  
"You idiot, look what you did to poor Jimmy!"  
"I'm gonna knock your lights out"  
"Have a nice trip, poophead!"

Memories of all the bad things Sarah had done to Eddy started swarming around his head, erasing the smile he initially had as he pulled the girl up. He stopped, much to Sarah's fright and confusion. His face distorted into a sneer as Sarah struggled to hold onto his arm.

"Bitch," he said softly as he released his grip on Sarah's arm. She held on to Eddy's relaxed hand, trying to get a better grip, but she slipped on his sweaty palm. Eddy hung there for a while, halfway out of the room, listening with sadistic pleasure to the girls fading scream as her image shrank and faded into the darkness below. A quick thought flashed through his head about the other kids, and Eddy forced himself to put on a face of sadness. Crawling back into the room, he let the door close behind him with no Sarah coming after.

"She....slipped." he muttered quietly to the group. Everyone was shocked at Sarah's death. Jimmy broke down into tears along with Nazz, though she was crying more out of fear than grief.

"How could you?!?" Kevin shouted at Eddy.

"Calm down, Kevin." Edd said, though he felt a lump rising in his throat. "It was an accident. She-she slipped." he said hoarsely, letting a few tears trickle down his face.  
Everything is happening so fast. Edd though to himself as he slumped against a wall.  
Rolf, Marie, Sarah. They all died without even so much as a few last words. They never deserved to die.

"Well, it looks like climbing down the edge is out. Let's keep going." Eddy said, a sparkle of excitement in his voice.

"Eddy!" Edd shouted, "Can't you see the state we're in? Sarah just died!"

"So did Stretch and Marie, so what?"

"So what? So what?!?" Edd said, his anger rising. "Death is not 'so what' material! We'll never see Marie, Rolf, or Sarah again! Think of how Jimmy is feeling right now. Think of what Ed will feel!" he said, motioning toward Ed. He was pacing around the room, waiting for that red-haired girl who was nice to him to come back. He opened the door to the outer wall and peered out of it, as if he was expecting her to surprise him. After having his shirt tugged on by Kevin, he stuck his head back in and watched the door close back up.

"He's too retarded to see that she's gone!" Eddy retorted.

"He'll notice when we get out of this place and get him back to normal!"

"If we get out of this place, that is!"

"We will find a way out of here!"

"Says who?"

"Says....says..."

"Will you two shut up!?!" Nazz shouted. Ed was wailing loudly from the argument and he hid in the corner of the room. "Remember what Rolf kept talking about, where arguing would get us killed before the traps did? I don't want that happening!" she shouted, earning another loud wail from Ed. May crawled over to him and comforted the boy, much to the other's relief. "Let's just focus on keeping close to the wall and finding a door somewhere. We must be getting close."

"No we're not!" shouted Eddy. "We can't just keep going like this. We're done to our last shoe," he said, pointing to Ed's shoe, "we're in our underwear and I'm so hungry I could eat a horse! We'll never find the exit to this place before we all starve to death!"  
Jimmy resumed crying as Eddy's words sank in. Annoyed, Nazz went to a door and opened it.

"Double-D, I remember you once said that math does a lot more than we think. There must be more math involved in these numbers." she said. "You said this place is twenty-six by twenty-six by twenty-six rooms, right?"

"Yes," Edd said. "But the numbers are all much larger than twenty-six, so they can't be coordinates."

"I think I just got an idea." Nazz said excitedly. "I remember in math class that sometimes regular numbers can be involved in more complex ways, like adding or subtracting the digits in a large number to get a smaller number." she said.

"When did we learn that?" Kevin asked.

"I actually payed attention in math class. Why else did you think I got that 'A' on my report card?" Nazz said. "Anyway, these numbers must be more important than we thought. Double-D, what's nine plus nine plus nine?"

"Twenty-seven, I believe."

"And this place is twenty-six cubes high, wide and deep, right?"

"I believe so-" Edd cut himself off as an idea popped into his head. "So are you saying that adding the digits of every number will give us its real coordinates?"

"Yes!"

"But wait, what if a room is marked with 999? Wouldn't that make it outside-" Edd cut himself off once again as he ran toward the door to the outer edge of the cube. "It would be outside of the cube, connecting it to the outer wall." he said in astonishment.

"Wasn't that one room we found the Kankers in marked with a 999?" Jimmy asked. "It was definitely not outside of the cube."  
Edd and Nazz's excitement died down.

"He's right; even when you add the digits together the coordinates don't make sense." Kevin said. "Plus, the rooms like move or something. Remember how we got into that one room and after that earthquake, all the rooms around it were trapped?"

"So much for 'math solves everything'!" Eddy said sarcastically.  
The group decided to rest a while before continuing on. Soon everyone was asleep, except for Eddy. He hadn't been able to sleep since he woke up in the Cube. He would just lay down and think to himself, though the insomnia was getting to him. He started contemplating Sarah's death.  
That brat, he thought to himself. She deserved to die. And now she's out of my head forever. His head started lulling back and fourth as he looked around the orange room. The walls seemed to ungulate, expanding and contracting as the boy's sanity started floating away. Three annoying people were out of his hair forever: Rolf, Sarah, and Lee, all thanks to this giant death trap. Who else cold he get rid of?  
He looked over at Nazz, who was fast asleep sitting up against the wall. She was beautiful, lying there in her underwear.  
No, Eddy thought as he crept up toward her. She's hot.

Nazz suddenly woke up, but a hand was placed over her mouth before she could say anything. Eddy shushed her and quietly ushered her over to a door. Checking the green room beyond, he and Nazz quietly went inside it without waking up anyone else.

"What's going on?" she said groggily, still not quite awake.

"We're getting out of here. Just you and me." Eddy said as he carefully closed the door himself to minimize the noise.

"But what about the others?"

"Forget them. It's just you and me. We are the key to the puzzle." Eddy said as he sat down behind her, massaging her back. "We are the key. The Cube is us. Two halves of the equation, a man and a women."  
Nazz jumped up as Eddy started reaching down her shirt.

"Woa woa woa!" she exclaimed, pushing Eddy away. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Shh," Eddy said as he put a finger up to Nazz's lips. "They'll hear you."

"I want to be heard!" Nazz shouted at the top of her lungs. "You're crazy!"

"I'm crazy about you, babe." he said in a drunken stupor as Nazz hurried up the ladder. Eddy managed to drag her off before she could open the door and pinned her to the ground. "You ain't goin nowhere."

"But you're goin to hell!" Kevin shouted as he tackled Eddy. The others soon entered the green room, watching Eddy and Kevin struggle to get on top of one another. Edd climbed down the ladder and, with May's help, they broke up the fight.

"Gentlemen, please!" he said as he held Eddy away from Kevin.

"That little jerk was taking advantage of Nazz!" Kevin shouted.

"We're all gonna die in here, so I was just making my life count!" Eddy shouted.

"He's freaking nuts!" Nazz shouted.

"So's Ed here, but your not doing crud about him!"

"Ed isn't trying to have sex with Nazz." Edd said sternly. "We should start moving again before we lose anyone else. Let Sarah's death be the last."

"You guys should thank me. I'm glad that brat is gone!" Eddy said. The other kids gasped in shock.

"Eddy!" Edd shouted.

"You-you let her fall!" Jimmy shouted, anger rising up inside him. "You killed her!"

"Yea, so what? She was a brat anyway." Jimmy ran towards Eddy and jumped on him. They scrambled on the floor, pulling each other's hair and squirming to try and kick each other. Kevin and Nazz broke up the fight this time.

"Everyone, please! Calm down and regain your composure before we all start killing one another!" Edd shouted. "We're getting close to finding out how this place works. Nothing in this place is random. There are over seventeen thousand rooms in this place, but we all found one another in less than one-hundred of them. The numbers marking each room mean something, and so do the parameters of the Cube."

"But the coordinate thingies don't work! Where's the math in that?" May asked. Once again, Edd and Nazz's excitement died down.

"Can you tell Shovel-Chin here to let me go?" Eddy whined.

"No! I don't trust being in the same room with a murderer! Jimmy shouted.

"Oh shut up, will ya?"

"Jimmy has a point, Eddy. Your lack of feeling toward death and your aggressive nature are not what we can trust at this point." Edd said. "You're still my friend, but I'm not taking any more chances. We need to find a way out of here first, then we'll talk."  
Eddy grumbled as Kevin slowly released him from his grip. May slapped Eddy when he tried to push Ed down to take off his shoe to check the next room for traps. She instead asked him nicely and Ed lifted up his foot, letting her slip the shoe off of him. With a toss into the room beyond, the unstable group once again resumed their navigating through the Cube.


	9. Permutations

"Shit!"

"Get the heck out of there!" Edd shouted. Eddy dodged the panel as it shot downward from the ceiling on a hydrolic arm and tried to flatten him on the green floor. Adrenaline flowing through his body, Eddy swiftly avoided the subsequent panels that came his way. He jumped up the ladder and made his way into the open crawlspace just as a hydrolic arm shot downwards in front of it. Sensing no more pressure on the floor, the arms reeled the panels back into the ceiling, making the room look innocent once more.

"You bastard!" Eddy said as he pinned Edd to the floor. Kevin and May struggled to pry him from the boy as he tried to land punches on Edd.

"I didn't know, Eddy! Some rooms have pressure sensors on the floor so they don't respond to booting or hair!" Edd shouted in defense. Right before Eddy punched him in the gut. Kevin managed to pull Eddy's body away before it landed too hard, but Edd still coughed and winced in pain. After pinning Eddy to the wall for a few minutes to let him calm down, the group decided to take a break.

"Geese, these people get creative with the traps." May said as she looked at the door leading to the green room.

"If only we had a better way of checking for them." said Nazz, crestfallen. "Double-D proved that the numbers marking the room mean something; there has never been a safe room with a number that was prime. But there a room can be trapped without one."

"The prime numbers must be part of a larger set that includes but is not limited to them." Edd said.

"Well, whatever the case, at least we know the numbers play a big factor in this place."  
After a second, Edd suddenly jerked his head up.

"Factors!" he shouted, "That's it!" Taking yet another bobby pin out of his hat, he started to scratch into one of the metal girders on the floor.

"What's up, Double-D?" Nazz asked, moving over to him.

"I think you just gave me the right clue, Nazz." Edd said as he continued to work. "You see, prime numbers only have one set of factors; that number and one. But there are other numbers besides primes that have only one set of factors."

"You mean like.......prime powers?" Nazz asked.

"Exactly."

"Wait a sec, what's a prime power?" Kevin asked.

"A prime power is a number who's only factors is that of a prime number multiplied by itself a certain number of times." Edd said.

"English, please?"

Edd sighed a bit, then started scribbling on a different piece of metal. "Okay Kevin," he said as he scratched the number 25 into the metal, "what numbers do you multiply to get twenty-five?"

"Um........five and five?" he said.

"Correct. Five is a factor of twenty-five. Is there anything else you can multiply to get it?"

"Uh...." Kevin paused for a few moments.

"The answer is no, Kevin. Twenty-five is a prime power; you can only get it if you multiply five by itself, and five is a prime number."

"So that means that if there is only one factor that you use to get a number marking a room, then the room is trapped?" Nazz asked.

"Exactly, Nazz. If the number is comprised of just one prime number multiplied by itself any number of times, including zero, the room is trapped. That's how prime numbers are included, but not the only indicators of a trapped room." Edd explained.

"So let's get going!" said Eddy as he stood up. "I wanna get out of his hellhole!"

"Calm yourself, Eddy. There's just one problem with my theory." Edd said.

"And that is?"

"Prime factorization of a three-digit number is a very large task, even for someone like me." said Edd. "Each number would take quite a few minutes before I figured out the number factors in it, and I'm afraid we don't have that kind of time." As if on cue, Kevin's stomach started to rumble loudly. Eddy groaned loudly in frustration, hitting a wall with his fist.

"Well get started, sockhead." he said angrily.

"Eddy, did you not hear what I just said?"

"No, I heard you. And I don't care! You're the brainiac of this group, so figure out a way to your precious math faster!"

"I can't, Eddy!"

"Figure out how to then!"

"I cannot factor possibly hundreds of large numbers before we all starve to death! We've already gone about two days without food or water and we'll all be dead if we waste any more time getting out of here!"

"I'm not dying in a goddamn rat maze!"

"Look at this!" Edd said as he climbed a ladder and looked at the numbers in the crawlspace leading to a red room. "567, 898, 545, there's no way I can factor that in time! It's astronomical!!" he shouted. "I can't even start on 567!"

"T-two."  
All at once, everyone turned and looked over at Ed.

"Ed, what did you say?"

"Two. Three times three times three times three times se-seven. Two numbers. As-tro-nomical." Edd looked over at the numbers, then back at Ed.

"My god, he's right!" Edd shouted. "Ed, how many factors are in one hundred?"

"Two. Five times f-five times two times two. T-two factors."  
The other kids looked at Ed as if he'd just solved the worlds problems with one sentence.

"No way." said Nazz, astonished.

"You mean that telethon boy here is a genius?" Kevin asked.

"Ed, what are the prime factors in 898 and 545?" asked Edd.

"Two......Two." Ed said dumbly. Edd quickly went over to the trapped green room and asked for the prime factors of the numbers marking it.

"Two, t-three, and one." he replied. Edd looked back at the door leading to the red room.

"Do you really think your prime factor things work?" Kevin asked. Eddy and Jimmy climbed the ladder and looked in.

"One way to find out." Eddy said. Much to everyone else's shock, he grabbed Jimmy and threw him into the room beyond. The others quickly climbed up to the entrance and watched in horror as..........nothing happened. Edd went into the room next to help Jimmy up. His arm was bleeding slightly as it was torn by the sharp end of the handle on the floor entrance. The others went into the room and Eddy inspected the door handle.

"Why the heck to these things have a pointy end?" he asked.

"Well, these handles are actually industrial-sized die holders used to cut large screws, Eddy. It looks like the dastardly villains who made this place cheeped out a bit." Edd said, chuckling slightly.

"Hey, is this screw all that holds them on?" Eddy inquired, pointing at a bolt in the side of the handle with a riveted edge so one could unscrew it by hand.

"Don't even think about it Eddy. These things are screwed on too tight to take off by hand, and the last thing any one of us needs right now is a weapon."

"Anyway, back on topic. Why the heck is Ed so smart all of a sudden?" Kevin asked.

"His post-traumatic state must've turned him into an autistic savant." Edd said.

"And that is?"

"A person who lacks intellect in most fields of knowledge but super humanly excels in just one or two fields, like math. Ed's traumatic experience with witnessing Rolf's death must've sparked or snapped something within him to activate his hidden intellect in math."

"My boyfriend is a math whiz!" shouted May who hugged Ed excitedly. She saddened a bit at his lack of reaction, but continued to hug him none the less. The kids found that their progress through the Cube was much faster now. Edd would say the numbers and Ed gave the factors, and Edd's theory held true. After a few more rooms, they entered a green room and Nazz screamed. In the corner, his body decomposing and releasing an awful stench, was Rolf. Or what was left of him anyway.

"Y-you mean to tell me that we just went in one gigantic circle this whole time?!?" Eddy shouted, foam comically pouring from his mouth.  
Jimmy started crying and Nazz went over to comfort him. Edd collapsed onto his knees and felt like someone had jabbed a wrench in his stomach. They were right back where they started, or close to it anyway. He and the rest of the kids sat down in exhaustion and frustration, except for May.

"Why did you guys make such a big deal when you got to that edge before?" she asked, looking through one of the doors.

"Because the edge was what we were looking for. Idiot." Eddy muttered.

"You're the idiots. We're at the edge right now." The other kids looked at the door May opened and saw a familiar blackness beyond.

"What?" Edd shouted. "That can't be! We were nowhere near the edge when Rolf died." He quickly ran and checked all of the rooms around them. "Oh my god."

"What is it, Double-D?"

"That's it!" he shouted, excited. "We haven't been going in circles, the rooms themselves have!"

"What?!?" Kevin shouted.

"The room that killed Rolf is no longer adjacent to this one. And now we're at an edge." Edd explained.

"So the rooms do move!" Nazz shouted. "That explains why the numbers aren't coordinates, because how do you plot something that keeps moving?"  
For the umpteenth time, Edd's head shot up as an idea entered his mind.

"Permutations!" he shouted.

"What?" Kevin asked.

"Permutations. They're like guidelines that show movement of a point on a graph; where it starts out, where it moves to, and how many times it moves before going back to its original position."

"So your saying that every room in this place goes under these permiations or whatever?" Eddy asked

"They have to, Eddy! The evidence is right here!" he exclaimed.

"So the coordinates found by adding the digits of the numbers-"

"Are the starting positions of each room!" Edd finished. "That's why the room we found the Kankers in wasn't outside--it was still going through its cycle of movement!" He quickly ran up to a door and checked the numbers. "I think that we can find the permutations by subtracting the digits of each number in different orders." he said.

"Do you think you can find where it is right now?" Nazz asked.

"I think so." Edd said. "Though I'd prefer to do it in a different room." The others traversed a few more rooms, away from the stench and sadness of a decaying Rolf. Edd took out another bobby pin from his hat and offered it to Nazz. "I could use some assistance, please." Nazz took the pin and joined Edd in scribbling out different math equations.

"That's it!" he shouted, looking over his and Nazz's work. "The bridge cube should be at 13, 10, 13."

"How far is that?"

"Give me the numbers of the rooms around us."  
The kids all opened the surrounding doors and gave Edd the numbers.

After some more figuring with Nazz, Edd said, "This room is in 13, 22, 10. We need to go up three rooms and across twelve. to get to the bridge before it goes back to its original position."

"We'd better get going then." said Kevin as he opened the door above. Climbing in after Ed declared it safe, the group began the chase after the bridge cube.


	10. Door Handle

"Two, two, one."

"Trapped!"

"Three, Two, Four."

"Clear!"

"F-five, two, three."

"Clear!"

"One, one, one."

"Very trapped!"

"Very trapped? How can a room be very trapped?"

"Move it, will ya?"

"Come on Ed, what are the factors of 253, 559 and 526?"

"Two, two, t-two."

"Clear!"

The group steadily made their way to the bridge cube, taking a few detours to avoid trapped rooms. Edd would go into each room first, the feeling of cracking the code still wonderfully bright inside him. Nazz, also excited at their new system, gained the courage to go second. They were followed by May and Kevin, then Jimmy and Eddy. They entered a white room, where Edd said they now had to go upwards. Kevin volunteered to climb up and read the numbers in the crawlspace above. When he opened the door, he stopped.

"What is it?" Edd asked.

"Woa." Kevin looked above to see a long tunnel of rooms above. Another rumbling started to shake the area and Kevin saw something come down the tunnel. The shaking grew so violent that he fell off of the ladder and onto Eddy. The entity above nearly slammed down on top of the white room the kids were in before stopping suddenly. The ceiling door closed, making a loud click as it snapped to link with the door above. Kevin climbed up and opened the door again to find a blue room, which Ed subsequently proved to be safe.

"I guess that proves my--our theory." Edd said as he looked over at Nazz. Eddy and Kevin just rolled their eyes and proceeded to climb up to the ceiling. This time, May volunteered to go first, followed by Jimmy, Nazz, Ed, and Kevin. Eddy started to climb up when the door suddenly closed as he stuck his head in the room above. His neck was pinned between the door and the edge of the crawlspace, and the other kids looked in shock to see Jimmy holding the door handle.

"I can't take it anymore! You don't deserve to live after killing Sarah!" he shouted as he held Eddy in the makeshift vice. Eddy couldn't talk with the slab of metal pinning his throat to the ceiling, but he managed to sound out the word "basterd" between struggled breaths.

"What in Sam Hill is going on up there?!?" Edd asked as he inspected the partially closed door on the ceiling.

"Jimmy's gone crazy!" Kevin shouted as he and May tried to rip the boy away from the door. Jimmy violently kicked at the screw holding the handle on and it broke off. Before Kevin and May could restrain his left arm he reached down and jerked the handle off of the door. He quickly jabbed at Kevin's hand and May let go out of shock. Kevin fell over, clutching his bleeding wrist and swearing while Jimmy threatened May and Nazz into a corner.

"Now you are all going to stay away as I kill this murderer or else you're going down with him!" he shouted. He opened the door and violently pulled Eddy out of the crawlspace. Out of fear, Eddy quickly avoided Jimmy's attack and ran to a nearby door, where he went into the orange room beyond with Jimmy in close pursuit. He jumped from the crawlspace to tackle Eddy onto the floor. They wrestled around, trying to get on top of the other until a sharp pain struck Eddy's side. They scrambled up to see a multitude of small mechanical arms protruding from various points in the room around them. They ended in two long, flat prongs facing each other and pointed at the two boys. Between the prongs on one arm was a thin strip of metal. The edges were curved like crescents which ended in a sharp point. The blade started spinning around very rapidly between the two prongs. The two jumped out of the way just as the blade shot from the arm and was caught by another, where the process began again. After two more dodges, Jimmy took his door handle and held it in front of him, facing the prong currently holding the razor. The blade shot at him but bounced off of the door handle where it clanked to the floor. The mechanical arms, sensing no more ammo, retracted back into the walls of the room. Jimmy took this opportunity to lunge at Eddy. Eddy rolled away and picked up the blade by its rounded part in the middle, wielding it like a knife. May, Nazz and Kevin entered the room just as the two started to clash their makeshift weapons together.

"Gah!" Edd shouted as he fell from the top of the white room below. His nervousness caused his hands to become very sweaty, making it hard to grip onto the thin ladder rungs on the ceiling. "What on Earth could be going on up there?"

"Stop this, right now!" Nazz shouted as Eddy and Jimmy continued to fight. Eddy was stronger but Jimmy was nimble and dodged his amateurishly-executed attacks. He took his handle and swung it hard at Eddy, who backed up and held up his blade to take the punishment. The handle knocked it right out of the boy's hands and into May's neck, much to the horror of Nazz and Kevin. Blood spurted out as the girl tried to breathe without success and she fell to the floor face-first, jamming the knife all the way through until it poked out of the back of her neck. Jimmy and Eddy paused their brawl out of shock, which was interrupted by a sudden rumbling sound. The blue room slowly started to move upwards, and Kevin quickly wasted no time in getting into it. Nazz started to jump in after him, but the crawlspaces were halfway apart as she stuck her torso into the room. Her lower body got caught between the halves of the crawlspaces, and an ear-splitting scream came from the girl as she started getting ripped in half. This startled Edd, who was just about to get up through the floor and he slipped back down through the crawlspace, clutching on to one of the rungs as the room started to pick up speed and rise higher in the tunnel. Nazz's screaming stopped as the bottom of her lungs were torn off and half of her fell into the room, her blood forming a puddle on the blue floor.

"Nazz!"

"Assistance please!" Edd shouted as the room rose ever higher. Kevin quickly bent down into the crawlspace to help him but he was too late. Edd's hand slipped and the boy fell twenty-something feet onto the top of the room below, hitting his head hard against the metal surface.  
And his chip detached.


	11. Memories

_"Today is a big day!" Edd's father, Benjamin, said at the table. He carefully turned his grapefruit half around on the table, trying to get the perfect angle. Taking his spoon, he jammed it into the fruit only to get sprayed in the face with juice. "Dangit!" he shouted as his wife, Marian, took a rag and wiped his face. Edd chuckled as he nibbled on a slice of bacon. This was the first time in what felt like years that his parents ate breakfast with him, and Edd was enjoying every bit of it._

_"So you finally finished making those panel things?" Edd inquired._

_"Yep. And just in time, too. They say they finally finished putting together whatever it was those panels were for."_

_"And we were given the morning off to celebrate!" said Marian._

_"Not to mention half a million dollars!" Benjamin added._

_"Does this mean you'll be able to work less?" Edd asked._

_"Maybe, Eddward. I hope so; spending breakfast with you and your father has been wonderful!" Marian said. They finished their meal and washed the dishes. The trio went outside to find everyone else heading to their cars._

_"Wow, it's been rare to see everyone leaving for work at once like this!" Benjamin said as he opened the garage._

_"Does everyone here work at the same place?" Edd asked, looking at Ed and Eddy's parents walking to their cars._

_"They do, Eddward. We all work for Izon, though our departments are kept pretty seperated."_

_"Do you think you could take me to work with you?" Edd asked, curious at what it was the company was finished building._

_"I don't see why not; our work day is supposed to be just celebrating. I guess we could take you along. Hey, why don't we take all of your friends along as well?" Marian asked. Edd nodded excitedly._

_"Everybody!" Benjamin shouted, getting everyone's attention. "How would you like to bring your children to work with us? It could be like a neighborhood party!" The various adults thought for a bit, some coming up to Benjamin to clarify, and they all agreed. All of the kids were brought along, including the Kanker Sisters in the back of their mother's pickup truck. It was a long drive, and half of it was spent inside an extremely long underground tunnel that twisted and turned in all sorts of directions until they came to a large, dimly-lit parking lot._

_"Cripes, Ma! You need to get a tailgate on this thing!" Lee complained as she, May and Marie hopped off of the truck._

_"Who's idea was this again?" Kevin asked as he got out of his SUV with Rolf. The latter gestured to Edd, and Kevin rolled his eyes._

_"Oh come now, Kevin. This is probably the one opportunity to see where most of our parents work!" Edd said as he joined with Ed and Eddy._

_"Whatever."_

_"It's okay Jimmy, I'm here." said Sarah as she comforted Jimmy, who was frightened of being underground._

_"Come along, everyone." said Marian as she and the other adults lead the way. They all went to a wall that contained three elevators. In the middle of each elevator door was a large, uppercase "I" inside of a geometric shape. All of them were taken by the large group, and in each one there were only two buttons; Up and Down. The parents all pressed Down, and with a sudden jerk the elevators dropped at an alarming rate._

_"Don't worry!" shouted Nazz's mother over the startled yelling (and screaming from Jimmy) of the other kids. "They do this all the time. It's a long way down!"  
After a minute, the elevators slowed down quickly and stopped with a screech of the brakes on the metal tracks. Looking at the dial above the door, the kids saw that they were only halfway "down". The doors opened to reveal a long hallway, earning a few groans from some of the children._

_"Oh come on, it's not that long of a walk. Besides, this leads to the assembly hall, and we rarely get to go there." said Benjamin as they started their walk down the hall. Along the way, they passed a bald-headed man who's face turned shocked at the sight of the kids._

_"Good god, what have you done!" he exclaimed as he put his hands on Benjamen's shoulders._

_"What is it?" Benjamin asked as the man continued to act as if Edd bore the mark of the beast._

_"You should know better than anyone that no one except authorized personnel is allowed in this place!"_

_"Oh calm down, Alderson. We just finished a project that's been under construction for years, since before we all moved to Peach Creek. Heck, it was the reason we moved here in the first place! I think they'll understand if we bring our sons and daughters to the big celebration."_

_"No they won't!" Alderson shouted. "Do you know how anal the higher ups are about rules?!? You could all get fired for bringing your children here, or worse!" The man was visually disturbed and Edd saw his eyes get misty._

_"Worse?" asked Nazz, who shifted closer to her mother._

_"Don't worry, sweetie." Nazz's mother said._

_"But I'm serious! Get these children out of here before someone sees them!" the man whispered loudly. Frantically looking around, he found a nearby door and gestured frantically for the kids to get in it. They were skeptical, but the sound of footsteps in the distance alarmed the man further and the parents ushered the cul-de-sac children to get in. Edd and the others found themselves in a large storage closet filled with spare panels, sprayer nozzles, and small, short tubes in a bin labeled "ladder rungs". Leaning his head against the door, Edd could faintly hear the voices of his father and another man on the other side._

_"-etings, Mr. Jax, sir."_

_"Greetings, Benjamin. What was that I heard as I was walking down the hallway?"_

_"N-nothing--nothing important, sir. Just a little chat with Alderson, sir."_

_"Ah, well. You and your friends better make it down to the assembly hall. Ten years of hard work will start paying off today."_

_"Yes sir. Err, excuse me sir, may I ask a question?"_

_"And what would that be?"_

_"M-may I-we bring our kids to the presentation, maybe show them around a little? I mean, today we are celebrating the comple-"_

_"You know the rules, Mister Benjamin...."_

_"Leavanworth?"_

_"Yea, whatever. No unauthorized personnel in the facility. Ever."_

_"But sir-"_

_"Do you wish to disobey the rules, Mr. Leavemworm? Do you wish to know what happens to people who don't follow orders?"_

_"N-n-no, no sir."_

_"Good. Now, let's make our way to the assembly hall, shall we?"  
Edd listened intently as the footsteps of everyone's parents faded away until the only sound was that of Ed's giggles, muffled by Sarah's hand on his mouth._

_"What the heck is going on?" Kevin whispered._

_"Don't ask Rolf; you all invited him to come!" Rolf said._

_"I'm scared, Sarah," Jimmy whimpered. Edd felt a vibration on his head and reached under his hat to grab a cell phone._

_"How long have you had one of those?!?" Eddy whispered loudly as Edd flipped the phone open._

_"Don't start, Eddy. This phone is for emergencies only, like right now." Edd opened up his messages folder to find a text from Benjamin. "Dear Eddward and everyone else, please evacuate the facility post-haste. Make your way toward the parking lot and wait for us to come back for you. Do not let anyone see you along the way. Love, Father."_

_"Great. Just great. Your stupid dad had to bring us to a place where we're like criminals or something!" Kevin said acidly._

_"Hey, he didn't know they wouldn't allow children here for a celebration for the completion of a ten-year project. Anyway, that's not important. We need to get to the parking lot quickly." Edd replied. After peering under the door, Kevin quietly opened it and found the hallway empty. Quickly and quietly, the group went out and headed down the long hall. After passing countless doors, everyone came up to a fork in the hallway._

_"Do you remember which one we came out of?" Nazz whispered._

_"I think it was the left one," Eddy said quietly._

_"Plank says the one on the right leads to the parking lot." Johnny said._

_"I'm almost positive it was the left one," Jimmy said. A few hushed sounds and gestures of agreement came over the group._

_"But Plank says-"_

_"We're not listening to a piece of wood!" Kevin whispered loudly. Johnny backed off, hurt, but proceeded to follow the group into the left hallway. After a few minutes of walking, they came up to a dead end._

_"Crap!" Eddy said loudly, much to the others' worry._

_"What was that?" said a man as he came out of a nearby door. He took a long glance at the team of kids before rushing back into the office._

_"Run!" Eddy shouted as he saw the man picking up a phone. The kids ran down the dimly-lit hallway as fast as they could, the doorways on either side passing them like a blur. As they neared the intersection, three men dressed in black outfits and black masks intercepted them and raised their weapons. A fine, steam-like mist shot out of the nozzles the men were holding and it engulfed the kids, causing them to cough and gag. Edd felt his consciousness fade away as he continued to inhale the strange substance._

_"Ah, it looks like he's finally awake," said a man as Edd opened his eyes groggily. He shut them tight as a blinding light shined over him, and when Edd tried to rub his eyes he found he couldn't move his arms. Edd opened his eyes slowly to adjust to the light and found he was strapped to a surgery table. "Good morning, Mr. Eddward Leavanworth," the man said politely as he hovered over Edd._

_"Wha-what's going on? Where am I?" Edd said groggily._

_"You were caught snooping around the facility and were found guilty, so it's the death sentence for you."_

_"Guilty? Death sentence?!?" Edd's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. "I don't remember a trial!"_

_"Oh don't worry, there was no trial," the man said casually as he picked up a syringe filled with a green liquid._

_"No trial? Is this legal?!? How can you put a child to death for being in the wrong place?!?" Edd shouted frantically. From behind the curtains on his left Edd could hear the voices of the other kids, presumably in the same state as he was._

_"Yea, how can you do this to a bunch of kids?!?" cried Nazz._

_"I never did anything to deserve this!" shouted Kevin._

_"Settle down now, children." said a familiar voice. Another man walked up to the table near Edd. His left eye was replaced with a strange looking mechanical one and he walked unevenly, needing a cane to help support him. Edd could tell by his voice that he was Jax, the man Benjamin talked to earlier. "Mr. Bartox, could you be so kind as to lift these curtains up? I would like to talk to everyone present."_

_"Y-yes, sir." The man holding the syringe complied and opened up the curtains one by one, revealing surgery tables in a small semicircle around the center of the room, each one holding a kid from the cul-de-sac._

_"Thank you, Mr. Bartox. Now children, you have disobeyed the rules. And when children disobey rules, there is a punishment."_

_"It's illegal to put someone under 18 years of age on death row!" Edd shouted._

_"Ah, yes. But we're not putting you on death row. I'm going to give you all a choice," Jax said, straitening his tie._

_"It's still illegal!"_

_"Hush, or I will take your choice away." Jax said, his tone becoming more menacing. "Now children, you have two options. Death, or be put in a little experiment with a chance of survival."_

_"Survival? You mean we get to live?" asked Johnny._

_"Yes, but before the experiment you will be wiped of your memories of your little field-trip and recent events. Can't go around telling people about us now, can you?"_

_"Why don't you just wipe our memories and send us on our way?" asked Edd._

_"Because, Mr. Leavanworth, there wouldn't be a punishment if we did that."_

_"What kind of experiment do you speak of?" asked Rolf._

_"You'll see, dear boy. It's the project we've spent ten years working on, and you will make excellent test subjects." Jax grabbed his cane and started to walk towards the door._

_"Wait!!" shouted Edd, causing the man to turn around._

_"What is it? I'm on a tight schedule, you know."_

_"What's going to happen to our parents?" Edd asked, his eyes getting misty._

_"Ah, your parents. Don't worry, we still have use for them. Of course, we'll have to make a few modifications but they'll be just fine." Jax started to turn around once more._

_"WAIT!!" Edd shouted louder._

_"You're starting to bore me, kid. What is it?"_

_"C-can I see them?" Edd asked, trembling. Jax twitched his head a bit, pondering._

_"Oh fine. Mr. Bartox, could you kindly bring in these childrens' parents?"_

_"Yes sir." Mr. Bartox said as he and Jax left the room. After a few minutes, everyone's parents walked in and started to say goodbye to their children._

_"I cannot express how sorry I am," said Benjamin as he stood in the front of the room, "to everyone."_

_"It's not your fault," said Kevin's mother. "No one knew things would turn out like this." Marian knelt beside Edd's table, tears dripping from her face._

_"Don't cry, mother." Edd said. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I choose the experiment over death."_

_"Me too," said Eddy. "Whaddaya say, guys?"_

_"I'm not sure dudes; we don't even know what this 'alternative' option is!" Nazz said._

_"Well, it's either that or death." replied Kevin._

_"And they said we could live if we chose the experiment."_

_"I say we do it!" shouted Johnny, earning nods of approval from everyone._

_"I can't believe we got ourselves into this," said Jimmy quietly as his father comforted him._

_"Yea, if only we hadn't gone left in that hallway." said Johnny. "You all shoulda listened to Plank!"_

_"Sorry, Johnny." Nazz said._

_"Okay, time's up." said Mr. Bartox as he entered the room and ushered the reluctant parents out. "Have you all made your descision?"_

_"We have." said Kevin. "We all choose the experiment."_

_"Very well, then. Now, since you're all kids I'll let you have the pleasure of being unconscious while I do this." he said. He went up to Edd's table, which was at the end of the semicircle, and took out another syringe. This one was filled with an orange liquid that he injected into Edd's arm. Edd felt his vision go black once more as he slowly drifted away from reality._

"So, that's what happened," Edd said to himself quietly as he lay on the top of the room, his head bleeding profusely. "How unfortunate." A low rumbling shook the area and Edd saw one of the rooms coming closer to him. He closed his eyes and smiled, remembering how his mother kissed him gently on the cheek before she left. The room took no pity as it crushed him into oblivion before moving up the large tunnel, ready to return to its starting position inside of the Cube.


	12. Brilliant Light

"Woa!" Eddy shouted as he stumbled to the floor along with Jimmy. The orange room began to rumble violently, and Edd felt as if he was in an elevator going sideways. With a sudden jerk and a strange, faint crunching sound, the room stopped. As Eddy and Jimmy got up to resume their fight, another jerk knocked them down again and the room started to move upward, rapidly gaining speed. Out of curiosity, Eddy managed to stumble to one of the doors and open it through the constant shaking and rumbling of the room. When it was open, light flashed on and off rapidly inside the room as it passed the brightly-lit crawlspaces of the rooms next to it. Another sudden jerk sent the two boys and a dead May flying upward a couple of feet as the room stopped its rapid ascent. After they plopped back down on the floor, the room then proceeded to move sideways again, over the top of the Cube.

* * *

"I think I'm g-gonna be sick," Kevin moaned as the blue room finally stopped moving. He stumbled to a few doors and opened them. Two doors lead to another room, but one door faced the edge of the Cube and another went out to the right, where there was a horizontal tunnel of rooms carved in the edge. "Crap, where's that exit cube or whatever?" Kevin asked himself as he closed the door. He looked over at Ed, who sat in the corner and started to strum his fingers on his leg.

"I l-like blue," he said as he stared at the ceiling of the room. "W-where everyone go?"

"Th-they'll catch up," Kevin said nervously as he sat down next to Ed. Kevin looked at the boy with mystery.  
At first he was just Ed, Kevin thought, but when Rolf died he became a dead weight. Now, he's the most important member of the group because he can tell if a room is trapped.  
"Do you still like jawbreakers?" Kevin asked.

"Jawbreakers!" Ed shouted, a large smile appearing on his face.

"I'll get you a whole box of 'em when we get home. You earned them." Kevin was happy to see Ed so excited, but it faded as Kevin realized they still seemed nowhere near an exit. "I hope you're right, Double-D." he said quietly to himself. A familiar rumbling shook the room, but when Kevin opened the door he found it was another room coming down the tunnel. It came up quickly but stopped just before it crashed into the room Kevin and Ed were in.

* * *

Eddy and Jimmy paused their brawl even after the room had finally stopped moving in order to allow Eddy to take his blade out from May's neck and for Jimmy to barf into the edge of the Cube. After Eddy wiped the blade with his pants and Jimmy cleaned up the vomit around his mouth, the two finally clashed their weapons again in the orange room.

* * *

"What was that?" Kevin asked as he heard faint sounds coming from the room next to him. He opened the door to see Jimmy and Eddy clumsily whacking a door handle and a razor blade together.

"You!" Eddy shouted as he turned and saw Kevin. His anger was short lived as Jimmy managed to puncture a hole in Eddy's stomach.

"You're still dealing with me!" Jimmy shouted as he drew his arm back for another blow. Eddy rolled on the floor and dodged it, seeing that Jimmy was standing on the floor door. Eddy grabbed the handle for the bottom door and jerked his arm back, spinning it and causing the door to open from underneath Jimmy. The sliding forward motion made Jimmy lose his balance and he fell backwards into the white room below. He managed to orient himself just before he hit the ground and landed on all fours, enabling him to stand back up. "You won't get rid of me that easily!" he shouted as Eddy closed the door above.

"I have better people to deal with," Eddy said to himself as he started climbing a ladder.

* * *

Jimmy rushed towards a ladder, though he tripped since he was still hurt from the fall. A mechanical whirring sound startled Jimmy and he turned to see four nozzles protruding from the walls. He quickly stumbled over to a wall but he saw the nozzles still aiming at him. Jimmy screamed as a cold, clear liquid sprayed onto him, drenching him head to toe. He ran to a ladder in attempt to get out of the spray but the nozzles followed him. After a good twenty seconds of continuous fire, the spraying stopped and the tubes retracted back into the walls of the white room. Jimmy opened his eyes and looked at himself to see his body was perfectly normal. He put up his hand and sniffed the liquid to find it had no scent. He slowly licked the back of his hand and found it very refreshing.

"W-water!" he shouted, sucking on his fingers. He took off his sopping wet pants and ringed them out over his open mouth, allowing a torrent of the cool liquid to rush down his throat. "Now Eddy, you're mine!" he shouted as he climbed up the ladder.

* * *

"Crap!" Kevin shouted as he struggled to hold down the door handle. "I could take on Eddy if he didn't have a freaking knife!"

"You can't hold on forever Kevin!" shouted a faint voice from the other side of the door. Suddenly, another rumbling sounded and nearly caused Kevin to lose his grip. As it reached its climax in the blue room, it suddenly stopped. Kevin's eyes widened.

"Ed!" he shouted. "Open that door!" Kevin motioned to a door with his head and Ed climbed up an opened it. Instead of the edge of the Cube where it once lead, a red room now lay beyond. "Get in!" Kevin shouted, and Ed climbed into the room. Kevin took the door handle and jerked it in the opposite direction, hearing a slight thud come from the other room. Kevin took this opportunity to quickly run into the red room with Ed and he closed the door behind him right after.

* * *

"Stupid Kevin!" Eddy complained as he got up off of the floor. He was about to climb back up the ladder when the door below opened up. A soaked Jimmy came up out of it, holding his door handle and pointing it at Eddy.

"I'm back!" he shouted as he lunged toward Eddy. Eddy prepared to dodge, but Jimmy stopped himself in midswing. He looked at his wrist and started scratching it. Eddy raised his knife and was about to attack but he saw Jimmy's scratching become more fervent, as if he was trying to take his skin off. Eddy then noticed Jimmy's skin was not only soaked, but it looked loose, as if it was a layer of rubber one could just peel off. And sure enough, much to Eddy's horror, as Jimmy continued to scratch at his wrist the skin started to come off, revealing a bloody mess of bone and muscle. As time passed Jimmy's condition became worse; the skin around his arm started peeling away by its own weight and soon Jimmy's whole arm fell to the floor in a bloody pile. Eddy screamed as Jimmy started to scratch at his face with his other hand, eventually peeling it off whole. Eddy opened the door into the blue room and didn't stick around to see Jimmy's clothes dissolve along with the rest of his body, turning the boy into a bloody pile of rapidly decomposing flesh and gore.

* * *

"Hey Ed," Kevin said nervously as he stared at what was in front of him. "Did you see him here before?"

"N-no," Ed stammered and shook his head.

"This is beyond creepy," Kevin said. Right in front of the boys, leaning against the wall, was Plank. He sat there, smiling his usual smile at them and Kevin almost expected to hear Johnny say, "Plank says you should open this door and get the heck out of here!". Ed went up and picked up the piece of wood, studying it a little before Kevin instructed him to open the door. Ed complied and opened up the hatch, flooding the room with a brilliant white light.

"Jawbreakers?" Ed asked as he stood there on the ladder.

"Yep, a whole box of 'em." Kevin replied as he walked towards the door. He was so awestruck by the light that he didn't notice the door opening up behind him. The sound of Eddy screaming alerted Kevin and allowed him to move just as the boy swung his knife at him. The blade gashed through Kevin's side and he fell over, writhing in pain.

"Look who's a dork now!" Eddy shouted as kicked Kevin.

"Th-that doesn't even m-make sense!" Kevin spurted as he clutched his side. "Will you s-top with the crazy a-act already! We-we're at the exit!"  
Eddy looked towards the open door that was letting in the light. The room began to rumble, signaling that it will move very soon. Eddy ushered Ed out and started climbing through himself. As Kevin got up and started to make his way up the ladder, Eddy kicked him and started going through the crawlspace. Kevin, in an act of desperation, struggled to get back up and grabbed Eddy's leg just as he was about to go through the crawlspace. The room slowly began to move as Eddy was held in place by Kevin, who was trying to use his leg as a support to get up. As Kevin realized what was going on, he let go. He was too late, however, and Eddy was pinned inside the crawlspace. A loud scream burst through the boy's mouth as the rooms started to split him in half, similar to the way Nazz died. The screaming stopped as the boy was bisected, his front half falling backward into the abyss at the base of the Cube while his bottom half remained in the bridge room with Kevin, which started descending down and back into the depths of the maze.

Ed, clutching plank, turned around to see himself in one last room. This cube, however, was made of gray concrete and only had one door. The side opposite of the door, however, was gone. Brilliant light poured onto Ed's face as he slowly walked into it, outside of the Cube.

**The End.**

**

* * *

  
**

_"God, I'm hungry."_

_"We all are, Avon. Shut up."_

_"Leave it to the damn government to throw people in a giant rat-maze without any food or water."_

_"Will you stop with the government conspiracy theories already?"_

_"They're not theories, Calhoun, they're facts!"_

_"Will all of you just shut up already? I need to concentrate!"_

_"Okay okay, chill out."_

_"Thank you. Now let's see.....724, 999, 616. There are no primes, so it should be safe."_

_"It's a good thing we've got a math whiz with us."_

_"Oh my god!"_

_"What is it?"_

_"There's a boy in here, along with.....eww!"_

_"A boy?"_

_"He's still breathing, thank god. But he has a big gash on his side."_

_"Did someone get cut in half or something?_

_"What the hell happened here?"_


	13. Behind the Chapters

**Behind the Chapters  
**

**Introduction**  
I began writing Ed Cube on Thursday, December 3rd. I had the idea a while after I was introduced to the Cube series, a trilogy of movies that have a group of people who find themselves in a large construct of thousands of cube-shaped rooms, some of which are equipped with deadly traps. In each movie, the characters have no memory of recent events and don't know why the were put in the Cube or who's behind it all. I thought that the plot would work well with characters from the Ed, Edd, n' Eddy universe, and so Ed Cube was born.

**Refrences to the Movies**  
While Ed Cube is a crossover of Cube, I included a lot of references to both the movie and its sequels, Hypercube and Cube Zero.

--The beginning chapter with Johnny is almost identical to that of the first scene in Cube, where a man wakes up in a white room, inspects his surroundings, and gets caught in a trap where a grid of razor wire slices him into a bunch of small cubes.

--The idea of throwing one's shoe into a room to check if it's safe, which the kids dub "shoeing", comes from the movie. Only instead of shoes, in the movie everyone is wearing uniforms with boots, so it is dubbed "booting".

--Many of the characters in Ed Cube are alluded to the characters in Cube, though since the former has a larger cast not everyone is crossed over.  
-Rolf is like Rennes, the leader-like character who introduces the method of testing rooms for traps. They both die in the same fasion; entering a trapped blue room that the boot didn't set off and getting acid sprayed to the face.  
- Kevin acts a lot like Quentin from the film; he takes the role of leader after Rolf/Rennes dies and becomes increasingly violent as the story progresses. Unlike Quentin, however, Kevin sees the error of his ways and lightens up near the end of the story.  
- Nazz and Edd both act like Leaven, a girl who is skilled in math and eventually figures out the math behind the Cube and the room numbers. Originally, Edd was to be the only one to allude to Leaven but I wanted to explain the math in greater detail without getting too redundant, so I used Nazz to be Edd's "assistant" who helps him crack the code and discusses the mathematics with him. Edd could also be somewhat compared to Worth, the architect who designed the outer shell of the Cube. He is the first to realize the connection between everyone's parents and the company who made the Cube, Izon.  
-Sarah is partially alluded to Holloway from the film, a lady who is short-tempered and seemingly paranoid but becomes more human throughout the story. Like with Holloway and Kazan, Sarah grows sympathetic and gentle towards Ed as he becomes scared and helpless. Also like Holloway, Sarah volunteers to explore the edge of the Cube, only to get dropped by the person who was about to save her (Eddy/Quentin).  
-Ed just acts like Ed in the beginning of the story, but after witnessing Rolf's gruesome death his unstable mind was pushed over the edge and he becomes a lot like Kazan from Cube. Both appear to be mentally handicapped, where they have a hard time following orders and they constantly strum their fingers on a surface. However, they are both shown to be autistic savants near the end of the story and become invaluable to the group, able to mentally calculate the factors of large numbers almost instantaneously. At the very end of the story, they both walk into the light, outside the Cube.  
-Eddy and Jimmy act like Quentin from later on in the film, where they become insane and dangerous. Jimmy only wants to kill Eddy because he dropped Sarah to her doom, but Eddy soon gets the urge to kill everyone that he doesn't like after he nearly saves Sarah. Like Quentin, Jimmy breaks the handle off of a door and uses it like a weapon. Also like Quentin, Eddy makes sexual movements on Nazz (Leaven) and near the end of the film Eddy gets cut in half as the bridge cube starts to move.  
-Johnny is like Alderson, who is the first to die in the story before meeting any of the other characters.  
-The Kanker sisters aren't alluded to anyone inparticular.

--Many lines from the movie either came directly from it or are paraphrased in the story:  
-Edd/Holloway: "At best, we only have about three days without food or water before we're too weak to move."  
-Rolf/Rennes: "Do not think about anything unless it's right in front of your face."  
-Ed/Kazan: "This room is green. I wanna go back to the blue room."  
-Nazz/Leaven: "At least he's good for something."  
-Nazz/Leaven: "We'll come back for him!"  
-Sarah/Holloway: "That's a lie, and you know it."  
-Edd/Holloway: "We are human beings! And so far that's all we've got left!"  
-Edd/Holloway: "The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing."  
-Kevin/Quentin: "I can't see sh*t out here!"  
-Eddy/Quentin: "We are they key, the Cube is us. Two halves of the equation, a man and a women."  
-Edd/Leaven: "567, 898, 545, there's no way I can factor that in time! It's astronomical! I can't even start on 567!"  
-Ed/Kazan: "Two. As-tro-nomical."  
-Kevin/Quentin: "You mean that telethon boy here is a genius?"  
-Edd/Worth: "We haven't been going in circles, the rooms have!"  
-Nazz/Leaven: "How do you plot something on a graph that keeps moving?"  
-Kevin/Leaven: "Woa."  
-Edd/Leaven: "I guess that proves my theory."

--Sarah's line, "So, worst-case scenario, we are anywhere from one to twenty-five rooms away from the edge! Come on, let's go!" is from Cube Zero where Meyerhold says the same thing.

--The line, "God I'm hungry," said by one of the characters in the epilogue of the story is taken from Cube 2: Hypercube, where Simon says the same thing before murdering and cannibalizing another character. It is also said by one of the characters in Cube Zero.

--Edd's last name, Leavenworth, comes from Leaven's and Worth's names put together. This goes with how Edd is the "math whiz" who figures out the inner workings of the Cube and how his father is partially responsible for constructing the Cube.

--The man in the flashback who is startled to see the kids is named Alderson, a character in Cube who died in the first scene.

--The doctor who implants the kid's chips in the flashback is named Bartox, who is a character in Cube Zero.

--Jax, the man with one eye and who walks with a cane, is taken directly from Cube Zero with the same appearance and personality.

--Every trap in Cube is found in this story, (The grid of razor wire, the flamethrowers/acid shooters, the rotating wire trap ["the sushi machine"], and the sound-activated spikes) along with some traps from Cube Zero (the bolts attached to razor wire that shoot across the room and the sprayers that coat the victim in what appears to be water until it slowly starts dissolving their flesh).

--Izon, the name of the company the childrens' parents work for, comes from the end of Hypercube and Cube Zero.

--In Cube and Cube Zero, all of the characters are wearing uniforms with their last name stitched on. In Cube 2: Hypercube, however, the characters still have their street clothes. The fact that the characters are wearing their usual clothes in Ed Cube can be taken as a slight Hypercube reference, though in truth it was actually because of a mistake on my part.

**Character Deaths  
**This is quite a gruesome story and involves almost all of the characters dying. If you got confused at all, here is a list of who died and how, in chronological order.

**Johnny-** Drops into a trapped room and is cut up into small cubes by a grid of razor wire.

**Rolf-** Enters a trapped room that the boot didn't set off and got sprayed in the face with acid.

**Lee-** Gets caught in a razor wire trap; dies offscreen.

**Marie-** Slips off of the ceiling ladder in a room trapped with sound-activated spikes and is impaled from all sides.

**Sarah-** Dropped over the edge of the Cube by Eddy.

**May-** Impaled in the neck by a razor blade knocked out of Eddy's hands.

**Nazz-** Cut in half by two rooms moving apart.

**Edd-** Crushed by a moving room.

**Jimmy-** Sprayed with a solution that is believed to be water until it starts eating away at his flesh and innards, causing him to rapidly decompose.

**Eddy-** Cut in half by two rooms moving apart.

**Kevin-** Receives a deep cut in his side by Eddy but survives. Is found by others at the end of the story.

**Ed-** Makes it out of the Cube and walks into the light on the outside.

**The Math  
**Throughout the story (as well as the first movie), the Cube is revealed to have more rhyme and reason behind its inner workings than the characters originally thought. Edd and Nazz start to progressively figure out the mathematics behind the Cube and essentially "crack the code" to its system, allowing them to avoid trapped rooms and find the exit. The math is taken directly from the movie, using these key facts:

-The Cube is made up of 17,576 rooms with 26 rooms on each side.

-Each room has a small metal plate located on all of its six crawlspaces. Each consists of three three-digit numbers, each one ranging from 001 to 999.

-The rooms move around the Cube a certain number of times before they all return to their original position.

-One room has a starting position that puts it outside of the Cube, acting as a bridge between the Cube and the outer wall of the structure.

-The coordinates for a room's starting position can be found by adding the digits in each number, so a room with the number "475, 395, 076" would become "16, 17, 13" (4+7+5, 3+9+5, 0+7+6).

-Each room undergoes permutations, which define how many times a room moves and what points it moves to before going back to its original position.

-The permutations of a room can be found by subtracting the digits of a number in different orders, so if a room had the number "673", the number's permutations would be -4 (6-7-3), -2 (7-3-6), and -10 (3-7-6).

-If a room contains a number that is either a prime number or the result of a prime number multiplied by itself any number of times, it is trapped.

**Trivia/The making of  
**Personally, I quite enjoy watching "Behind the scenes" segments of movies and seeing a little of how they are made and what people thought of when making them. I would like to do that here, so I present a few interesting facts about the writing of this story.

--I started writing this story before I actually saw Cube; everything I knew came from wikipedia and various clips of the movie on youtube.

--A few chapters in, I debated on whether or not to make the story more like Cube Zero, where Edd's father is a technician who sees that his own son was put in the Cube, so he enters it himself to save him. It was scrapped in favor of being more like the first movie where there is no outside interference. I did, however, make the flashback sequence have a lot of Cube Zero references.

--I had Ed and Kevin's fates planned out from the start, where Ed walks out of the Cube and Kevin is still alive, where other people find him. Up until that point, except for a few key moments that were in the film, most of the story was made up as I went along to fill the gaps in between.

--I decided to add Plank in the last part of the story as a bit of comic relief and also a slightly creepy mystery; he wasn't in the bridge room the last time the characters went in it but he appeared as it aligned to the exit.

--I originally had no idea what to call the story at first; I had thought of names like "Ed Cubed" or "CubEd", but those sounded too cheesy for me. A member who went by the name Colton O' Weekly (I'm not sure what is name is now; he keeps changing it) suggested the name "Ed Cube" to me and it stuck.

--The part where Edd explains the door handles are industrial die holders isn't found in the movie. The doors for the film set of Cube actually _are_ die holders but it is never mentioned in the movie itself.

--Originally, I was going to have Nazz be the most cautious and unadventurous character, always going into a room last and never taking risks. Near the end of the story, she would excitedly stick her head out of a room in excitement where, ironically, it would get knocked off by a passing room. I decided against the idea when I had Nazz get cut in half between two moving rooms instead.

--I wanted to give Eddy some sort of weapon to counter Jimmy's door handle, but I didn't want him to break off a handle of his own. Instead, I made up my own trap that consisted of a spinning blade that is fired at the characters between arms protruding from the walls, where the blade is intercepted and used by Eddy.

--I made up two traps of my own in the story; the first is the razor blade trap explained above, and the second is a trap where the panels from the ceiling come down on hydraulic arms and try to crush whoever is in the room.

**Conclusion**

So there you have it. I quite enjoyed writing Ed Cube along with this Behind the Chapters segment, and if you liked it I might have one for all of my future stories!


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